


People In Motion

by Aelys_Althea



Series: Simple People [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Army, Building Lives, Chatroom Conversations, F/M, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Military references, Minor Character Death, Missions, Mutual Support, Parallel Stories, Sequel, army life, chatroom, episodic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-10-25 02:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 76,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10755153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aelys_Althea/pseuds/Aelys_Althea
Summary: Voltron collapsed, but for the paladins it couldn't drag them with it. The certain skills of one programmer in particular ensured that. Now, with a Voltron of their very own, the paladins can maintain that which they've striven so hard to build.Allura heals from her surgery. Hunk graduates from school. Keith ends his days in the system and Lance struggles to patch together a life outside of that he's always accepted for himself. Pidge learns self-acceptance in the most grueling way possible and Shiro - Shiro finally embraces the limb that he thought he never deserved. But it's not that simple. It could never be that simple, because trials arise at every turn.The support of a few friends, however, could more than make up for the challenges.





	1. Hunk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Just a bit of a heads up here, everyone.
> 
> First and foremost, welcome! To those who are joining me from the prequel, welcome back, and those who aren't, hello! Thanks so much for picking up this story and I hope you like it. Please be aware, though, that it does have kind of a different tone and goes in something of a different direction to the prequel. I hope that doesn't disappoint anyone and swear I won't be offended if it's not your thing :)
> 
> Secondly, updates for this fic are going to be in TWO PARTS. That means that each chapter will have at least one second chapter updated immediately after it, sort of as a sister, accompanying chapter. Be sure to check out the second chapter of Chapter 1: Hunk, which is called 'Butterfingers'.   
> Other than that - enjoy!

_Voltron: Year 1, Month 6/12 of rebirth_

_Paladin of Operation: Butterfingers_

* * *

Everything changed on the day Hunk lost his mom.

Literally lost her. He didn't know quite how it happened, but one minute she was at his side, as still and silent as ever in her wheelchair and simply staring with her glazed, slowly blinking eyes. Then, in the moment that Hunk turned from her to greet his teacher – or in the few moments, really – she disappeared.

Graduation was a big deal for Hunk. A very big deal. That day, with the release and jubilation blossoming on the faces of every student, the knowledge that they had reached their goal, that they were moving forwards, that they would be _out_ and _away_ , set smiles to lips and sparkles to eyes. Noise resounded through the wide hall of Hunk's school, ricocheting from the walls and rebounding off the ceiling in a cacophony of chatter and laughter and animated cries of congratulations. After the ceremony, it had all deteriorated into something of a party.

For Hunk, it was different. For Hunk, _school_ had been different. He'd managed to attend enough of his final year to pass, and though it had been a trial of juggling what had become part-time work, caring for his mom and attending his classes, he _had_ passed. He'd finished. He was done.

It was fantastic and immensely satisfying, but also just a little… sad.

Hunk would have readily discarded his heavy graduation robes, even though they were yellow and yellow had become something of his colour after being assigned as much by the old Voltron. The hat too, which most had collected after the typical 'launching into the air' ceremony. It had been fun, Hunk would admit, and he hadn't been able to banish the smile from his lips, even if the heat didn't lend itself to the graduation robes in the slightest.

Hunk had been standing alongside his mom when Mr Howard had found him, talking idly to her as though she would actually respond. His gran had momentarily disappeared in search of his friends, because apparently simply messaging them wasn't suitable for conveying directions in her opinion, and he was left alone for a brief respite.

"Are you proud of me, Mom?" Hunk asked, leaning over her shoulder and grinning at her unresponsive face. "I'd like to think you are. Did you see me up on stage? I did it, Mom. I actually did it."

It had been hard. The past half a year had been a juggling act, made only harder by his mom's brief deterioration when Hunk had started back at school. He'd almost ceased his resumption immediately at that, and would have too had not the mutual encouragement of his gran and his Voltron friends urged him otherwise. But she'd gotten better. Surprisingly, seemingly impossibly, according to many of her doctors, she was stable.

 _Stable. That's all I'd ever ask for. That she's stable_. It was his mantra and always would be. Hunk knew what an exceptional case his mom was. Stroke victims, especially those who'd suffered not one or two but three, rarely if ever endured for so long. For Hunk, it was only proof that his mom was a survivor. Maybe she'd wanted to see him graduate too? Hunk liked to think that.

Holding out his award and certificate into his mom's lap, Hunk felt pride well within him once more. He doubted she read it – or that she could, even if she did try – but he showed her nonetheless. "My grades weren't fantastic," he muttered, "but I did well enough. I passed, Mom. Me. I actually did it."

His gran called him something of a miracle for what he'd done. Hunk was equal parts embarrassed and delighted to be told as much, especially when his friends immediately agreed with her. Hunk knew he had the best friends. The best family. He –

"Mr Garrett! Congratulations! I'd hoped to see you before the day was out."

At the sound of his name being called over the babble of voices around him, Hunk turned from his mom. Straightening, he glanced over his shoulder and felt his smile renew at the sight of Mr Howard starting towards him. He took a step towards his teacher in turn. "Mr Howard! I wouldn't leave before speaking to you."

Hunk had shared a moment with many of his teachers, just as he had with his fellow students, even if none were quite so close as to be considered best friends. He'd indeed hoped to see Mr Howard once more; his favourite teacher, he'd been the one who had signed him up to an external engineering class. Mr Howard went above and beyond for Hunk for reasons Hunk couldn't quite discern. He appreciated it, but it was confusing given that Mr Howard was only his maths teacher.

Apparently, as Mr Howard had said, he saw something special in Hunk. That conversation had promoted him to being Hunk's eighth-favourite person in the entire world. In many ways, he was even fonder of his teacher than some of his friends from the Balmeran Bakehouse. He was something exceptional.

Mr Howard was a short man, greying and wrinkling with a kindly face and bushy eyebrows. He beamed up at Hunk as Hunk turned towards him with a proud smile that Hunk fathomed would have adorned his mom's face had she been able to adopt such an expression. An identical kind had certainly been affixed to his grans for most of the afternoon, though of perhaps a fiercer variety.

"Please, call me Steve," Mr Howard said. "You're not my student anymore, after all."

Hunk grinned a little bashfully. "I don't know if I could do that just yet, sir."

Mr Howard laughed. "I know. Student-teacher familiarity is often a difficult barrier to overcome." As if in denial of his words, he clapped a companionable hand onto Hunk's shoulder. He had to reach up quite a ways to do so.

Laughing, Hunk nodded fervently. "Not that you're not awesome, Mr Howard, but I think I'll just keep calling you sir."

"When you come and visit, of course. Which you will." Mr Howard spoke affably enough but there was a hint of demand in his tone.

Hunk nodded once more. "Of course I will. I can't forget my roots."

"Ensure you don't. When you become a world-famous engineer, that is."

"World famous? That's setting the bar a little high, isn't it?"

"Not at all," Mr Howard said with a firm shake of his head. The smile he adopted was once more proud and just a little humbling. "You've got a gift, Hunk. You truly have."

That meant something to Hunk. All of it – returning to school, the late nights putting in the hours for study, caring for his mom and trying to maintain his work hours all at once – it had all been a struggle. All of it. Every day. But it had been worth it to finally learn, to finally graduate, to come out the other side knowing that he'd _done_ it. Lance wasn't fond of school. Keith was nonchalant at best most of the time and Pidge actively disliked the hours committed to the rigid walls of an educational institution. Shiro had been dedicated enough and Allura an avid, self-declared science nerd, but even they hadn't been quite the same as Hunk. Hunk _wanted_ to be there.

And he'd done it.

Hearing from Mr Howard that, despite his barely passable grades in most of his subjects but Mathematics and Engineering, he was special, that he 'had a gift'… that truly meant something to Hunk.

Not that he felt comfortable receiving such heartfelt compliments. Hunk felt himself flush before his old teacher, dropping his gaze to his feet as he shifted awkwardly. "Thanks, sir. Although, I think I'm more of a baker than any kind of famous-engineer material."

Mr Howard waved his words away as though shedding his fingers of a disagreeable cobweb. "Nonsense. I've seen your work, Hunk, and your it speak for you."

"Still," Hunk muttered, even if he couldn't help but smile. Blush and smile, but smile nonetheless.

"Still nothing. And besides who says you can't do both?"

Hunk blinked down at his old teacher, at the sincere and open expression he tipped towards him. "Both?"

Mr Howard shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"

Hunk chuckled. "Well, they're kind of at opposite ends of the spectrum , those two."

"And so? Why should that be a problem?"

"I never said it was a problem, just…"

"Did you know I used to be a boxer?"

Hunk blinked. Mr Howard, a boxer? He stared at the man before him, perhaps midway into his fifties if not a little older, and blinked some more. He couldn't see it of him, as much because of his slightly portly stature as because he was, well…

"Doesn't seem likely that a maths teacher would have an interest in boxing, does it?" Mr Howard said with a knowing smile.

"I didn't say that. You can never prove I was thinking that."

Mr Howard laughed, adding his own amusement to those of the voices that similarly rung around them. "Well, you wouldn't be the first. Not by far. I still make a habit of going to see matches, you know. My wife was always a fan of Rocky back in the day."

"And the Rocky movies are an accurate depiction of boxing?" Hunk asked.

"Not really, but my wife and I do share the interest. It helps to surround yourself with likeminded people. I have my teaching, my love for mathematics, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the sport I once participated in too."

 _There_ , Hunk thought to himself. _Life lesson learnt for the day._ He hadn't really expected to have any even vaguely philosophical discussions on his graduation day, nothing besides the usual empty platitudes, but he was far from objecting to it. He was fond of Mr Howard, and hearing him speak of his likes and hobbies as he did was somehow inspirational. Regardless of the fact that he'd been all but required to pursue a career in it for two years, Hunk still loved baking. He loved it almost as much as his love for engineering had grown and blossomed over the past year. He'd spent as much time as he could spare down at old Larry's hardware store of late and his mom hadn't objected.

Or at least, Hunk's gran said his mom wouldn't have objected. She always said "It 's a good thing for Maggie to get out some more," and Hunk had to agree. He thought his mom looked better for the visits to Larry's, for those he took to the local cafes to meet with his friends when his gran couldn't care for her in his absence, for his regular Saturday nights at Shiro's apartment or Allura's castle – for the estate would always be a castle to every single one of the paladins. Always incredible, regardless of how often Hunk and his friends visited.

Hunk hoped his mom would have been proud of his engineering too. No, he didn't hope. He knew she would be. Was. Behind that unshakeably blank façade, she was.

Hunk spoke to Mr Howard only a little longer – of where he was considering taking himself, of the colleges he should apply for if he hadn't already, in further congratulations and more friendly squeezes on the shoulder. Then, with a final pat of his hand, Hunk's favourite teacher took a step backwards. "Well, I'm pleased with the effort you've put in, Hunk. I'm sure I'm not the only one a little awed by you."

Heat flushed Hunk's cheeks for what could have been the tenth time that conversation. "Thank you, sir."

Mr Howard waved his gratitude aside. "Not at all, for it's the truth. Not many young men have to struggle through half of what you've managed."

"Thank you," Hunk murmured once more. Then he watched as Mr Howard took himself into the sea of surrounding students and once more dove into a conversation with a girl Hunk recalled as being called Hayley. She'd aced the grade in Mathematics that year.

Still buzzing with pride, Hunk turned back towards his mom. He was supposed to be keeping an eye out for his friends and was surprised that his gran hadn't dragged them to his side already, but he didn't mind. In the warm glow that suffused him, Hunk could hardly be frustrated with any of his friends, even if he was one to grow as such. They'd come to see him, after all. Even Pidge who, by all rights, should have been at school herself. Or himself, as he'd corrected Hunk that day.

But when Hunk turned towards his mom, she was gone.

In an instant, of confusion followed by concern then by overwhelming horror, Hunk was turning in place. Eyes widening in panic, he raked his gaze over his surroundings, attention snapping to the back of a moving head, to a bark of laughter, to a wheelchair that – no, that wasn't hers.

Where?

Where was she?

Another staggering spin on his heels and Hunk nearly tripped over himself. In that barest instant, his day had gone from jubilant and _good_ to utterly terrifying. He could hear his heartbeat pounding too fast in his ears, his breath the only thing audible through it as even the sound of his fellow graduates faded. He was turning so fast that he could barely see at all.

Then he dove into the crowd. Hunk didn't really care about impoliteness. He tried to be, at every other chance he tried to be, but now was different. Now his mom – his mom was –

_Where is she? She can't have taken herself somewhere. Where's she gone? Who moved her? Who took her?_

It might have been irrational terror. It might have been illogical, for realistically, who would attend a high school graduation and abduct a handicapped woman seated barely two feet behind her son? But Hunk wasn't thinking logically. His mom was his number one priority. His responsibility. His – his –

Hunk was reaching for his phone almost without thought. For Voltron. To the Voltron that was _theirs_ , and theirs _only._

_Butterfingers: Help_

_Butterfingers: Guys, help_

_Butterfingers: Please, everyone, I've_

_Butterfingers: lost my mom and I can't_

_Butterfingers: I don't know where she is_

_Butterfingers: Someone took her and I don't know_

_Sharpshooter18: Whoa, hold on a second, Butters. Calm down for a second._

_BlackLion007: You've lost your mother? What do you mean?_

_Red: Where? Where was she last? Do you mean someone took her somewhere?_

_PrincessOfAltea: Oh, Butterfingers, calm down and tell us what you mean. Your mother is missing?_

In seconds, almost before Hunk could get his own desperate plea out, his friends were replying. His best friends, those he could – and did – always rely upon for _everything_. He hadn't even met with them yet that day but they were waiting at his beck and call nonetheless.

_BlackLion007: Where are you? Where did you last see your mother?_

_BlackLion007: Sharpshooter and the Princess are right, Butterfingers. We need to know so we can help you._

_DiffWizard: Did you see someone take her? Do we need to cover the exits?_

_Sharpshooter18: Already way ahead of you. I'm going to the back door just in case._

_Red: I'll cover the one on the east wall._

_PrincessOfAltea: Calm down, Butterfingers. We'll find her, don't worry._

Hunk hadn't stopped walking for the entire time he'd been messaging and reading, but even as he frantically searched he felt himself reassured by his friends' support. He still tore his gaze around himself, still all but barrelled through teachers and ex-students and family members that _didn't realise_ there was a _crisis_ going on. Had there always been so many people in his grade? Surely not. It was a big school, but surely not. Hunk abruptly cursed that there were just _so many_.

He asked teachers if they'd seen his mom. He grabbed apologetically onto the shoulders of every passer-by and asked if they'd seen "A woman in a wheelchair, doesn't look much like me but does just a little bit". He glanced at his phone each time it buzzed with an incoming message.

_DiffWizard: There are so many people everywhere. I wish they'd all just stand still for a second._

_DiffWizard: Never been more grateful I go to a snotty private school._

Hunk could only detachedly agree with Pidge, at least in his first sentiment.

_Sharpshooter18: I'm clocking up a bit of backlog here at the door. I don't suppose anyone's found her yet?_

_Sharpshooter18: My questioning skills have never seemed less capable._

Hunk agreed with Lance on that, too. Apparently no one had seen his mom.

_BlackLion007: I've found the principal. He's offered to make an announcement on the speaker system if we'll give him the go ahead._

_Red: What if she's been taken outside?_

_BlackLion007: Someone might still have seen her._

_Red: I'll head outside and run a loop of the hall._

_Red: Do you think you can take my spot at the door, BlackLion?_

_BlackLion007: Got it. I've told the principal and he's heading to the microphone now._

Hunk turned unconsciously towards the front of the room, towards the stage elevated before the spread of vacated seats. He swallowed thickly; anxiety still strummed his nerves with a rapid beat, but like a bottle capped just as it reached its peak, his friends and their immediate rush of support stoppered him before he could overflow.

As Hunk stared with baleful eyes towards his principal fiddling with the microphone, his phone buzzed and his attention snapped towards it. What he read deflated him like a balloon popped by a blessed pin.

_PrincessOfAltea: I've found her._

_PrincessOfAltea: Don't worry, Butterfingers. I've found her and she's alright._

_PrincessOfAltea: She's with your grandmother. Fae has just told me to tell you that she apologises for worrying you but she thought you might prefer to talk to your teacher without having to watch after you mother._

_PrincessOfAltea: She admits she'd very sorry._

Hunk closed his eyes as his principal's voice echoed in his ears. He barely heard the words, the request Shiro had posed. It didn't matter anymore. Hunk was grateful for the help, but it didn't matter.

 _She's alright. Thank God, she's alright._ His phone still buzzed in his hand and, with fingers that trembled just slightly as he hadn't even noticed them doing, Hunk dropped his gaze to the black backdrop of Voltron. Their Voltron. The Voltron that only he and six of his friends had access to.

_Sharpshooter18: Oh, thank fuck. I thought I might have a mob on my hands in a minute or two._

_Red: Why?_

_Red: Did you have to keep them inside the hall specifically?_

_Sharpshooter18: Naturally. Lockdown 101._

_BlackLion007: That's a relief. Thank you, Princess._

_DiffWizard: You just saved my life. It's one thing to be in the middle of all this craziness but entirely another to have to swim through it._

_DiffWizard: You alright, Butterfingers?_

Hunk found himself nodding as he haphazardly tapped out a reply. There was even something soothing about reading his paladin name, a comforting affection to it. They'd all agreed to maintain their pseudonyms on Voltron; it just felt more right somehow.

_Butterfingers: I'm alright. Thanks, everyone._

_Butterfingers: Sorry about the explosion._

_PrincessOfAltea: There's no need to apologise. It's entirely understandable._

_Red: I'm sure you were worried. Very understandable._

_Sharpshooter18: Understandable._

_DiffWizard: We. Are. All. Parrots._

Hunk couldn't help but snort in amusement. It was more of the hysterical variety, but the relief that allowed it to spring forth was sincere. Turning in place and realising he didn't have a destination in mind, he tapped out a quick message to Allura.

_Butterfingers: Thank you so much, Princess._

_Butterfingers: I think you just saved my life._

_PrincessOfAltea; I think I just got lucky :)_

_Butterfingers: Where are you now? I'll come to you._

Following Allura's directions to the flood of similar comments from his friends, Hunk started towards the back of the hall. How his gran had managed to make it all the way to the senior's parking lot was a mystery to him – almost as much as _why_ she'd decided to go all the way out there – but he was too relieved to question it.

_Red: I'm already on my way._

_Sharpshooter18: Oi, you're not waiting for me?_

_Red: Do you need me to wait for you?_

_DiffWizard: Are you pouting, Sharpshooter?_

_BlackLion007: I'll just thank the principal before coming out too._

_PrincessOfAltea: Yes, thank you for that anyway, BlackLion._

_DiffWizard: Oh, I found you, Butterfingers!_

"I found you, Hunk."

At the sound of Pidge's voice, Hunk glanced over his shoulder. Over and down, because Pidge was about half his height. He managed to smile at him, though he it was maybe a little sickly. "Hey, Pidge."

With a shift of his glasses on his nose, Pidge eyed him sceptically as they continued to the door of the hall, wading through bodies. "You look like shit."

"Thank you."

"You're alright," Pidge said, as though he was trying to convince Hunk rather than simply stating an observation. He raised a hand to Hunk's elbow and squeezed slightly. From Pidge, it was as good as a supportive embrace. "She's okay, Hunk."

"Yeah, I know." Hunk wiped a hand across his face. _She's stable. She's safe._ "I know. I just freaked out for a moment there."

"We know. But seriously, it's okay, Hunk."

From anyone else it would have sounded like little more than an empty platitude. But from the members of Voltron? From _their_ Voltron, as it had been for the six months since Pidge had constructed it from the bones of what had been destroyed? They knew. Aside from his mom, from his gran, to Hunk the paladins of Voltron were the most important people in his world.

They crossed through the school, the grounds dotted with students and families and teachers talking in clusters or drifting away from the hall as the ceremony drew to a close. The early afternoon light was still as hot as it had been that morning but Hunk barely considered it anymore. He started at a rapid pace towards the parking lot, striding between the stout school buildings in what might be the last time he ever saw them. Pidge was forced to all but trot at his side.

At that moment, Hunk disregarded the sentimental fact. He couldn't think that anything truly mattered except ensuring his mom was alright. It wasn't that he didn't trust Allura's assurances, or his gran for that matter, but the weight of her disappearance still had his fingers shaking. He needed to see her.

Everyone but Shiro was already at the senior's car park by the time Hunk and Pidge drew alongside them. At first, for one narrow-minded and consuming moment, Hunk had eyes only for his mom where she sat in their midst. Still, silent, slowly blinking and blank but… alright. Of course she was alright. Hunk shouldn't doubt it, even if he had just experienced a near-death experience for his heart-wrenching burst of terror.

After that moment, however, he could breathe again. Hunk could glance towards his gran and the faintly apologetic expression she wore before concealing it beneath a pointedly raised eyebrow. To Allura at her side, standing as tall and straight and stunningly beautiful as ever; it was something that Hunk had always recognised in her but was only more apparent after she'd overcome the worst of her surgery's effects. She offered a small wave and a bright smile to he and Pidge both as they approached. Coran, standing at her shoulder as he was want to do, beamed his own smile behind his tufted orange moustache, eyes crinkling at the corners.

Lance stood alongside Keith, speaking with his usual wide gesticulations and with a very definite note of indignation in his voice, though the slight quirk to the corners of his mouth suggested it was much of a ruse. Keith watched him dubiously, arms predictably crossed across his chest and in his predictable red jacket despite the heat, but he turned to Hunk and Pidge as they arrived. In doing so, he apparently distracted Lance from whatever he was saying.

Lance was at Hunk's side in a moment, slinging an arm around his shoulders. "You alright, buddy?"

Hunk smiled at him and it came a little more easily this time. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry about that, everyone." He glanced towards his gran. "And sorry, Gran."

His gran pursed her lips slightly before waving aside his apology. "Not to worry. There's no trouble."

"But next time, we've decided to communicate just a little more," Allura said with a glance in his gran's direction.

There was nothing but warmth in her gentle reprimand, so Hunk considered that many might in turn consider such to be the reason his gran's hackles didn't rise as they would with just about anyone else. Except that Hunk knew his gran, and he knew what his gran thought of Allura. Was it perhaps hero worship in her gaze as she turned Allura's way and nodded just slightly, barely a little begrudgingly? Hunk had only seen an expression remotely resembling that his gran wore in Allura's presence when they attended church on Sundays.

Grandma Fae approved of Hunk's friends. She was scoldingly fond of Lance – for which Lance was incessantly provoking – fussed over Keith in a way that seemed to only confuse Keith and bore a very strong approval for Pidge's decisiveness ever since he'd told them all that he'd come out to his mom about his genderfluidity. Shiro she doted upon in a manner that might have been easily overlooked as simple approval by many, but Allura… Allura was the exception. To Hunk's gran, Allura could do no wrong.

"Yes, well," his gran said with a harrumph. "Perhaps."

"Or just send him a message from your phone," Coran perked up brightly, leaning around the barrier Allura presented between them. He raised a finger primly. "I've never been too hip with technology myself, but they certainly are useful, eh?"

Allura's shielding presence was much needed when Hunk's gran turned a frown towards Coran. The Death Stare. Hunk had been familiar with it for years, even if it hadn't been turned upon him in nearly a whole decade. Before the sight of it radiating from a little woman a whole head shorter than him, Coran shrivelled.

"I can't use that thing," Hunk's gran sniffed. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Would you like me to try and teach you again, Gran?" Pidge said. Out of all of his friends, Pidge and Lance were the only two to have taken to calling her such at Hunk's gran's behest. Hunk thought it endeared the both of them to his gran just a little bit more. "We can go over it again if you want."

His gran grumbled something under her breath but before anyone else could add to the suggestion – or could openly encourage it – Shiro appeared at Hunk's side. "Sorry about the wait," he said to the communal disregarding of everyone present. "Everyone's accounted for?"

"Here," Lance said unnecessarily.

"Oh, thank God, I wouldn't have known otherwise," Pidge said with a smirk, only to roll his eyes as Coran echoed with his own, "Here!"

"You managed to speak to the principal?" Allura asked, stepping to Shiro's side with a curious tilt of her head. "That was very kind of him."

"It was just an announcement," Keith said, shrugging as Allura glanced his way. "It wasn't anything all that difficult."

"Still, it was a nice thing to do."

"Nice how? Isn't it his job?"

"Red, your social unhinge-ment is showing again," Lance said, dropping his arm from Hunk's shoulder and stepping to Keith's side. The way he slung his arm instead around Keith's shoulders was distinctly different to how it had been with Hunk. Or maybe that was simply the kiss he planted on Keith's cheek; Hunk wasn't sure. "Tone it down a little, maybe?"

"I don't really think unhinge-ment is a word," Allura mused aloud. Then she seemed to shake herself from her thoughts and turned once more to Hunk. Her smile was reaffixed and its brilliance seemed to radiate in a tangible glow. "But enough of that. The incident has passed with little hiccup. So instead – a congratulations, Hunk!"

"Yes, congratulations," Shiro said, and he dropped a hand to Hunk's shoulder. His prosthetic hand, Hunk noted detachedly, and similarly detachedly applauded the fluidity of Shiro's gesture. He'd managed with barely a hitch at all. The heaviness of the hand was warm despite the lack of any real skin, but the feeling wasn't as strange as it once had been. "You should be truly proud of yourself."

"Of course he should be," Hunk's gran said. "My boy pulled off more than most children his age could manage under such strain." She tittered and seemed entirely oblivious to Hunk's renewed flush of embarrassment. "The complaining of some children these days about the littlest things."

"Gran," Hunk muttered and couldn't help but spare a glance towards his friends. Keith and Lance didn't appear fazed, but Pidge shifted uncomfortably. Pidge had always had issues in that regard – unwarranted issues, because he was fantastic, but Hunk knew him well enough to understand he had some very distinct insecurities. His dislike for school seemed to be one of them.

"It's alright," Pidge mumbled before visibly shrugging off his discomfort. He turned a smile up to Hunk that was only slightly feigned. "But I'm proud of you too, Hunk. You think I should take engineering next year?"

"Definitely," Hunk said immediately.

"Much and all as I'm sure he appreciates it, though, I'm still worried that you skipped a day of school, Pidge," Shiro, ever responsible, frowned slightly as Pidge glanced up at him. "What am I going to tell Matt when I see him next?"

"That you preserved my safety by picking me up from school rather than letting me make my way halfway across New York City myself?" Pidge replied.

"That'll do it," Lance laughed.

"I'm fairly sure Matt doesn't have much control over what Pidge does anyway," Keith said.

"Too right," Pidge agreed with a sharp nod.

"Should we drop you back to school?" Shiro asked. "You'll still have a few hours left, won't you?"

"Shiro," Lance said before Pidge could get a word in. "Shiro, please. Let me tell you this little thing about school."

"Must you?" Shiro said with a touch of a smile.

"See, Lance understands," Pidge said with a sigh. "Not that you have an excuse to commiserate anymore."

Lance grinned widely. "That I don't. Sorry, Pidge, you're flying solo now."

"Three graduates in the one year," Allura said with a sigh that was almost wistful. "Is it wrong of me to admit that I feel somewhat proud as well?"

"No," everyone replied communally. Even Hunk's gran added her dissent to the mix and Hunk couldn't help but smile.

Allura and Shiro. In many ways, just as Hunk and the rest of his friends had teased them so long ago, they truly were the parents of their small group of paladins. It didn't matter that Shiro was only a handful of years older than the rest of them and Allura barely a few more on top of that. It was simply how it was.

Shiro was undoubtedly the responsible one, the mature one, the one who always kept an eye out for everyone. In the months that Hunk had come to know him, he'd learned that much of Shiro. He was a protective kind of person and, for whatever reason had induced such feelings, admitted that he cared for them all most deeply. That he _would_ protect them, _would_ support them, should they ever ask, which he had done on numerous occasions. Hunk could stand testimony to that fact; he didn't know where he'd be without his Voltron friends but just as importantly he didn't know where he'd be without his Saturday nights at Shiro's apartment.

Or every second day when he dropped by to help care for Hunk's mom.

Or when he'd accompanied Hunk to the bank barely a month before to assist with the confusion of Hunk's dad's inheritance. Two years delay hadn't made Hunk any the wiser of how to deal with it.

Shiro was definitely more than just a supportive friend. Much more.

Allura was the same and yet slightly different. She had an analytical mind and analysis seeped forward with her liltingly observational words that at times hit almost a little too close to home. Hunk would never forget the first time he'd met her and the personal assessments she'd conducted on all of them. Allura's words still stuck with him months after their initial voicing.

When she'd progressed in her recovery, when she was no longer at risk of causing herself undue damage with particularly strenuous activity, Allura had blossomed. She was an incredibly strong woman, and she showed it in her commitment to her work, in her constant support of her friends and that she and her castle estate acted as their base of sorts for weekends when Hunk needed a reprieve from the city, when Pidge needed to escape his mom or Keith the confines of his foster home, or when Lance was afforded the freedom from helping out at his dad's shop. She was always an ear to listen to, a voice of reason, a gentle hand clasping fingers with a warm smile.

That she'd bounced back from her surgery with such speed and fullness was incredible. Hunk didn't need Coran to tell him that she was special to see as much for himself. Allura was. So was Shiro. So were all of Hunk's friends.

"I think this calls for a celebration," Pidge said, drawing his gaze expectantly around their group and entirely overlooking the pointed glance Shiro sent his way. "How about we go out to lunch?"

"Will it be a long lunch?" Keith asked.

Pidge frowned. "What? Why?"

"I'm only considering the extensiveness necessary to ensure you won't have any excuse for not returning to school."

Pidge's frown flipped into a grin. "I like where you're head's at, Keith. You've got it screwed on straight."

"Thank you?"

"Yes, that was a compliment."

"I'm not so sure it was."

"A restaurant?" Hunk's gran asked, a frown in her voice. "Now why would we need to go to a restaurant when I can cook all of you up something, hm?" Planted behind Hunk's mom's chair, she swept a pointed finger around their group. "All of you, you're too skinny. Especially you, Pidge."

"I'm not skinny, Gran. I'm fashionably slender."

"Those elbows have nothing fashionable about them," Lance said.

"What's wrong with Pidge's elbows?" Allura asked curiously.

"Nothing," Hunk and Shiro said in synchrony.

"Exactly," Pidge said primly. "And besides, Lance, you're a beanpole too."

"Ah, but I'm not. Keith, tell them. Under all these clothes, I'm –"

"Perhaps we should pause it at that?" Shiro interrupted overloudly. Then he turned to Hunk's gran. "Thank you for the suggestion, Fae, but it would probably be easier simply to eat somewhere close so that we could take our leave from here, don't you think?"

"Maggie and Hunk's house isn't so far away," Fae reasoned. "And you all love my cooking."

"We do," Allura said, though Hunk could hear in her tone that she similarly agreed with Shiro. That meant they'd win; when their opinions were combined as they often were, Shiro and Allura always won. They really were like the parents of their group. "But we wouldn't want to impose."

"And I'm starving," Lance added.

"Amen to that," Pidge said. "My stomach's eating itself. The closer the better."

"Too skinny," Hunk's gran grumbled. But she subsided after that and they were making to the cars a moment later.

Or running, as was the case with Hunk, Lance, Keith and Pidge. It took barely a glance in the direction of the parked cars, a glance between them all, then – _GO!_

It was something of a game mixed with genuine terror for who made it to the cars first. A terrified game one that they four had become sincerely dedicated to. Which car would they be assigned to. In that moment, despite the relieved aftermath that was discovering that his gran _was_ alright, Hunk was on a mission.

There were two options. One: Shiro's car. Shiro was always in Shiro's car, but he was rarely the one to drive it. He didn't like to because, even months after being outfitted with his prosthetic – and growing remarkably adept at handling it, Hunk would readily admit – he wasn't confident enough to conduct fine motor skills. Lance was the one who drove his car. Or Keith, as Shiro had been teaching him at every opportunity he could.

Then there was option two. Allura's car. Or the car that Allura was always the passenger in but that Coran drove. No one wanted to drive with Coran, and even Allura would admit her scepticism after seeing how proper people handled a motor vehicle. Coran… in short, Coran was a terrifying driver.

No one wanted to drive in a car Coran drove.

Hunk's mom and gran had customary seats in Shiro's car, because even Coran obliged these days and would admit that it was probably safer for the both of them. He took it all in remarkably good grace and changed his driving none for everyone's pervasive wariness. That left only two seats in Shiro's car.

The race was on.

Unfortunately for Hunk and Pidge, both Lance and Keith were usually faster. They were that day too, and no amount of pleading demands from Pidge or desperate manipulation on Hunk's part that it was his graduation day and he should get special treatment afforded them a free seat. It was all fun and games, really, and even more so when Hunk, Pidge and Allura climbed with slightly wobbly legs from the back seat after surviving the short drive to the restaurant. Hunk could almost even joke about it. Almost.

Hunk loved it when the paladins all gathered. Or the paladins and his mom and gran, for more often than not they joined them. Hunk could never be more than eternally grateful to his friends for their allowance in that regard; they could have very easily expressed disgruntlement or unease for the situation, but none batted an eyelid. Over a table-full of lunch – and the careful direction of Hunk's gran who, even in a restaurant, held the reigns of the menu – there was vibrancy and laughter, chatter and moments of comfortable silence. They were always broken barely seconds later by a protest from Pidge about unsanitary behaviour as Lance and Keith ate nonchalantly from one another's plates, or when Coran threw a particularly bad pun into the midst that had them all groaning, or when Shiro urged them into a discussion about what Hunk, Keith and Lance were going to do for the rest of their week with all of their newfound freedom.

"Soccer," Lance predictably replied. "When I'm not at the shop."

"I haven't thought about it," Keith said with a shrug. "Probably work too if I can shift the roster around a little bit."

"You should come with me," Lance suggested.

"I'm not very good at soccer."

"No, correction: you're not very good at playing in a team. Soccer you're fine at."

"I'll come," Hunk said. "If that's okay?"

Lance grinned at him approvingly. "'Course you can."

"Although I'm not all that good at soccer…"

"Doesn't matter. The more the merrier."

"Can I bring my mom?"

"You'll do no such thing," Hunk's gran said. "I'm taking your mom tomorrow."

"But," Hunk began.

"No but's. We're going to the art gallery with that clutch of hens from my art group." Hunk's gran thinned her lips for a moment, a predictable response when talking about 'those hens' she secretly adored. She always attended the art groups and their excursions, however. "There's a new display up."

"Oh, that sounds lovely," Allura said, lowering her glass after a delicate sip. Allura always ate and drank like a princess. Her Voltron name truly suited her. "I haven't been to an art gallery in some time."

"You're more than welcome to come along," Hunk's gran said in what might have sounded begrudging to anyone else's ears but to Hunk's definitely, definitely wasn't."

"Alas, I'm working," Allura sighed. "Perhaps another time."

"I'd love, though," Shiro said. "I've not much of an eye for art, but I'm always up for trying something new."

"No, you're coming with us!" Lance exclaimed, all but throwing himself forwards and halfway across the table to reach a hand for Shiro. "We'll definitely win if you're on our team tomorrow."

"What's that saying about Keith and me?" Hunk asked.

"Well, apparently I'm not a very good team player," Keith said with a hint of a smile.

"I hate you all," Pidge grumbled. "Where is the justice in the world that I, the person who least enjoys school, is the only one who has to go still?"

"You are not," Lance immediately said, glancing towards Pidge. "I challenge your claim."

"Challenge accepted."

It was just like that. Just that easy, as it always had been. Hunk had never had a group of friends quite like the paladins. They were all so different and came from such different backgrounds, and yet it was so comfortable to simply be in their company. Hunk had never enjoyed himself as much as he did when around them, not even when he worked alongside his friends at the Balmeran Bakehouse, the shy Shay and awkwardly-affectionate Rax. He loved them all dearly. Hunk wondered if it was simply his projection that he thought his mom seemed slightly brighter, slightly more in touch, when she was around them too.

They left hours later before the tentative nudging of the waiters requesting their departure for the night's influx. A reluctant Pidge and Lance bowed beneath the necessity of traveling in Coran's terrifying automobile-of-death, and after Hunk lifted his mom into Shiro's car once more and adjusting her accordingly, they said their farewells.

Hunk shared an easy drive home alongside his remaining friends in what was true satiation. It was quieter without the combined noise of Lance and Pidge, Lance in particular the being loudest of their party and proud of the fact, but it was no less comfortable. Simply different.

"Thanks for the lift home," Hunk said as he finished lifting his mom from the back seat of the car and seating her in her chair once more. He leaned into Shiro's passenger-side window, sparing a glance and a smiling nod for Keith in the driver's seat. "I'll maybe see you both tomorrow, then?"

Keith only nodded while Shiro's dropped smile and word of agreement. "Definitely. Art gallery or soccer game, I'll be around."

Hunk grinned. "Great. And, um…" He paused, shifted slightly in place and scrubbed a fist awkwardly at his nose. "Thanks for coming today. Both of you. And everyone. I should have said it before."

Shiro's smile widened and Keith gifted Hunk with one of his own. It wasn't as uncommon to see Keith smile as it once had been but Hunk still felt a little like he'd won something when he could induce as much from him.

"You're very welcome, Hunk," Shiro said. "I thoroughly enjoyed myself."

Hunk chuckled. "I don't think anyone actually enjoys graduation ceremonies. And we've all been to three in the last two weeks."

"And yet I enjoyed each of them."

"You have too much time on your hands, then," Hunk said with a shake of his head.

"Most likely," Shiro agreed. Then he was raising his left hand in farewell and calling a similar goodbye to Hunk's gran and mom over Hunk's shoulder. "I'll be seeing you tomorrow, Fae, Maggie."

"Goodbye, Shiro. Make sure Keith doesn't drive too madly."

"Keith's a great driver, Gran," Hunk said, sparing her a glance before turning back to Keith with an attempt at reassurance. "You are, Keith. Seriously"

Keith offered him another small smile. "It's alright, Hunk. I can accept that I'm mediocre at best."

"Which is better than Coran."

"True."

Hunk was still laughing as he waved at the black car drawing into the distance. Then he turned to take his mom's wheelchair from his gran and trundled her up the footpath towards the front door. Wonder of wonders, not a hint of rubbish adorned his poor excuse for a front lawn as had once so often assaulted it in the early days of his dad's death. It was nice to think that the animosity still attached to his house for his dad's name might be slowly weaning.

"I'll be taking myself back home for a few hours," Hunk's gran was saying behind him as she clambered up the two steps in Hunk's wake. She was just sprightly as ever. "Gert was popping over to pick up her old dinner set at around six. She's a little addled with the time, though. Runs on a bit of a skewed clock, she does."

"Why did you have Gertrude's dinner set?" Hunk asked as he took his mom inside, mind flicking briefly to the old lady who lived three streets from his gran and who she'd been friends with for years.

"Because she lent it to me," Hunk's gran said by way of explanation. Maybe it was, to his gran. Hunk didn't question it further.

He was left alone with his mom moments later. His gran always left in a bustle, was such a strong and large presence in the house that it always seemed just a little empty and a little too large without her. Hunk set about adding his own noise to the silent space between walls, tidying up the minimal mess that remained from that morning when they'd left in a flurry to make the graduation ceremony on time and talking idly over his shoulder to his mom as he did so. She was stationed in the living room where he'd left her but Hunk didn't feel the need to bring her along with him as he drifted between lounge to kitchen, tidying as he went. He liked to think that simply the sound of his carrying voice was enough for her silent and unresponsive listening. Hunk knew he was good at adding a bright, happy chatter to the quiet ambiance. Allura always told him that he was a very positive person.

"They're really very sweet," he was saying as he wiped the last of the soapsuds from the final plate with a hand towel. The clock on the wall read ten to six – he hadn't even noticed nearly an hour passing for his distraction. "Gran really likes them both too. What do you think, Mom? Do you think we'll have another Lance and Keith situation? Have Shiro and Allura start dating?" Hunk paused for a moment, considering. "That would be kind of weird, I guess. But then, no less weird than Lance and Keith, I guess. Sometimes I can even forget they're dating."

It wasn't entirely the truth, because Hunk couldn't forget. It wasn't usually anything overt – or at least nothing more overt than a handhold or a kiss on the cheek – but there was something about the way that Keith and Lance were simply _with_ one another. Standing beside each other. In constant awareness of one another in a way that was apparent even to Hunk as a simple bystander. That much he could read. It had been obvious to him even before they'd started dating.

Shiro and Allura… were they the same? Possibly. It would be possible, and Hunk thought they would make perhaps the kindest couple in the world. But maybe that was just it; they seemed to suit on another so well because they were so alike in that regard.

"I guess it would be kind of cute?" Hunk pondered aloud. "Except that it would leave me and Pidge as the two bachelors. Or the bachelor and bachelorette, depending on the situation." He shook his head. "Pidge probably wouldn't take to being called either, actually. It's way too mainstream and presuming."

Drifting back into the living room as he wiped his hands on his slacks, Hunk took himself to the couch and slumped heavily into the cushions. He'd changed from his graduation robes before they'd entered the restaurant, but the weight of them still settled upon his shoulders.

Graduated. Him. Hunk had actually done it. Mr Howard's words rung in the back of his mind once more: what would he do with himself? Would he go to college? It wasn't that he couldn't afford it, not after his dad's will had finally been sorted out. He didn't even truly need to work at the Bakehouse anymore, though he doubted he'd stop any time shortly. The world was, quite literally, Hunk's oyster. He had to care for his mom, it was true, but such wasn't burden. Not really.

"What _can_ I do?" Hunk murmured, head tipped back on the couch and eyes trained on the ceiling. "I could go to college, couldn't I, Mom? Could maybe get a scholarship? Mr Howard would be happy. Larry would be happy too, I know, and gran, I think. And it would be cool, I guess, but…" Hunk loved building things. He loved creating. He thought in many ways that such a love was part of the reason he liked baking as much as he did. In essence, they were both processes of creation. Going to college would allow him to further than endeavour, but…

When he thought about it, actually thought about it, did Hunk want to go to college? Maybe. Maybe he did. He'd never considered it a possibility before, with high school graduation being his end point. Was that the best – the only – path he could take? Hunk didn't know. He'd probably have to think a bit more about that, too.

"What do you think, Mom?" he sighed, as much to himself as his mom even if he truly believed she could still hear him. "If you could tell me, I wonder what you'd suggest I do." He tipped his head forwards and drew his gaze towards where his mom sat across the room from him, as silent as always.

He stared.

Then he sat up slowly in his seat. "Mom?"

No response. There was never any response, and yet…

"Mom? Are you…? Mom, are you alright?"

Hunk was on his feet in an instant, across the room a second later. His breathing hitched then stopped entirely as he dropped to his knees at his mom's side. As he took in her head where it slumped limply on her chest. As he met her staring, glassy gaze that didn't return his with any kind of vitality.

He stared and stared and – his mom was…

Hunk's mom, she was…

For a long moment, Hunk couldn't move. He couldn't breath himself, not when his mom wasn't breathing. Not when she was… when she was…

His fingers fumbled to his pocket for his phone but he dropped it as soon as he pulled it from his pocket. Hunk was terrified. Panicking. A different kind of panic to that he'd experienced earlier that day at the thought of losing sight of his mom. The room seemed to darken, and Hunk wasn't sure if it was because he struggled to breath or because the light was fading from the world.

He found he didn't much care either way. Allura had said he was always positive, that he always looked on the bright side of life. But sometimes… sometimes there just didn't seem to be a bright side at all.

* * *

_Butterfingers has entered the chatroom._

_Butterfingers: Help_

_Butterfingers: Please help me._

_Butterfingers: I've lost her_

_Butterfingers: My mom's gone_

_Butterfingers: I've lost her and I can't_

_DiffWizard: What? Again?_

_Sharpshooter18: Hold on a sec, Butters, what's going on?_

_Red: Oh_

_Red: Fuck_

_Red: Where are you?_

_DiffWizard: What? What do you mean?_

_Sharpshooter18: Oh shit._

_Sharpshooter18: Oh shit, Butters. Where are you right now?_

_Sharpshooter18: Where did you go?_

_PrincessOfAltea has entered the chatroom._

_PrincessOfAltea: Butterfingers, talk to us. Where are you?_

_BlackLion007 has entered the chatroom._

_BlackLion007: Butterfingers?_

_BlackLion007: Butterfingers, please speak to us._

_BlackLion007: Red and I are still at my apartment. We can leave right now._

_Sharpshooter18: I'm already out the door to the bus stop. Butters, where are you, man?_

_Red: We'll pick you up. DiffWizard?_

_DiffWizard: Please_

_DiffWizard: Shit shit shit shit_

_PrincessOfAltea: Wimbleton-Smythe and I are in the car now too. We're heading back to the city._

_PrincessOfAltea: Please, Butterfingers. Where are you?_

_Butterfingers: I can't_

_Butterfingers: I'm at the hospital_

_Butterfingers: Please_

_Butterfingers: I need you guys_

_BlackLion007: We're coming_

* * *

For Hunk, everything changed when he lost his mom.


	2. Butterfingers

_The evening air bordered on chilled, but it wasn't too cold. Not_ too _cold, though Hunk had never been fond of the cold at all. Warmth – from the oven, of enclosed walls, of a crackling fireplace when his gran deemed it cool enough to light on in her hearth – that was what he preferred. It was what he always preached was the 'best conditions' to his friends._

_But that evening was different. Hunk barely felt the cold as he squatted on the ground, half invisible shielded in the tree line and the shade of a concealing rock. Around him, the sounds of birds retiring for the evening, the gentle rustle of wind trailing its fingers through the leaves overhead, were all that broke the silence. Hunk crouched. Waited. Stared._

_The countdown. He had less than three minutes till he would make a move. Counting backwards in his head even as his thoughts focused elsewhere was a skill he'd picked up almost unconsciously. It was invaluable, and even more so because he knew he counted exactly synchronously with his fellow paladins._

_He couldn't see any of them. He couldn't see them dotted about the tree line, crouched similarly to himself, peering down at the stagnant little town with eyes peeled for any hint of movement. Hunk couldn't see any of them but that was to be expected. They were good, the paladins. Very good._

_Raising his binoculars to his eyes once more, Hunk tweaked fiddled the dial as he grazed his gaze down the modest dirt streets of the town that was barely more than a village. Another tweak as he passed his focus over a door that could have just moved but just as likely hadn't, drawing further into the distance and adjusting his sights accordingly. It wasn't quite dark enough to switch to night vision just yet, and Hunk had scoured every road and every house in the past hour as closely as he knew the other paladins had, but he couldn't see…_

_"Where are they?" he breathed, his voice barely audible even to his own ears._

"If it was me, I'd put them at the very centre of town. Furthest from the edges, station lookouts in every building surrounding… the usual jam."

"Thank you for your educated guess, Sharpshooter. You ability to put yourself into your enemies minds is both invaluable and slightly disturbing."

"There's nothing disturbing about it, DiffWitch. It's logical. Practical. Useful, too."

"Thank you, Red. Your eternal support is always appreciated."

"It's not support. Just fact."

_Hunk felt his lips twitch just slightly in amusement at the murmured exchange between his friends. It was the same. It had always been the same, in all of the years they'd been a part of Voltron, both the new and the old. Even barely loud enough to hear each voice, an ability only possible for the extreme sensitivity of the headsets and microphones he and Pidge had tweaked, he was able to discern who spoke each comment. Or maybe that was simply because he knew them so well?_

"… a little sad that you do support him in practically everything, Red. He needs to stand on his own, sometimes. Learn some resilience."

"I'm resilient enough, thank you very much."

"I don't always stand up for him. Only when he's right."

"Thanks, Red."

_"Not that I don't appreciate the affectionate atmosphere you're both radiating," Hunk said in his barest whisper that he knew would be heard, "but focus? Maybe?"_

"Butterfingers is right." _Shiro's voice was as flat, to the point and professionally clinical as it always was when they conversed in extreme conditions._ "We need to focus, everyone."

"Sorry," _Keith murmured._

 _"_ Yeah, sorry," _Pidge agreed._

"On point," _Lance finished._ "Got it. We're sticking to Plan B, I'm assuming?"

_They all knew the plans. Every plan was one Shiro hashed out before a mission and ordered in a way that was less demand and more encouragement for his team to commit to memory before they cleared out. Plan A was scrapped, Hunk knew as well as the rest of them, because not a single figure was in sight. That would make it Plan B's time to shine._

_Although, thinking of it like that… even with all of their banter, it was a serious situation. A very serious situation. Despite Pidge's incessant teasing, the flamboyance Lance wore like a second skin, Keith's usual blandly factual response and Shiro's seemingly instinctive diffusion, they were all on high alert. Hunk could feel it in every muscle that bunched in his limbs, that had remained tense with moderate intensity for hours now. He felt it in the deliberate slowness of his breaths, in his heartbeat, that was as instinctive as his counting._

_This_ was _serious. Very serious._

"Plan B," _Shiro confirmed with his own near-silent whisper._ "Maintain high alert. Refer sights at the barest movement. Moving out in thirty seconds. Twenty-nine… twenty-eight…"

 _Shiro stopped counting at that. He hadn't needed to speak even that much, for to their squad it was unnecessary. Twenty-seven… twenty-six... Hunk counted in his own head as he kept his eyes wide and unblinking, peering through his binoculars as he knew each of his friends were. Some movement. Any movement._ Some _thing would have been good. Hunk ignored the familiar jitteriness that always rose within him when teetering on the brink of an active mission. It was nothing he couldn't handle, but the tightness in his gut was far from comfortable._

_He could really use one of his gran's omelettes right then. They always made him feel better when contemplating the war effort._

_All such thoughts of fled Hunk's mind, however, when he grazed his scanning gaze over the town centre once more and caught the barest hint of a shift. He paused in a heartbeat, zipping the dial on his binoculars and fingers instinctively tweaking at the smaller dial Pidge and he had mutually insisted installed into all of their gear. His lenses sprung into minute focus and there…_

_"Centre building, two o'clock," he murmured. "Upper window on the right."_

"Good job, Butterfingers," _Shiro said._

"Eyes like a hawk, my friend," _Lance added approvingly._

"I guess that means definitely Plan B," _Keith said._

 _"_ Hm _," Pidge hummed in agreement_. "The Mothership will have a field day knowing they were right again."

_"Don't call them that," Hunk muttered. "Please. Don't encourage them."_

"Agreement to that," _Lance said._ "It sounds stupid."

"Oh, so the rest of our names don't in this context?" _Pidge said with an audible smirk._

 _"Alright, everyone," Shiro said, disregarding their exchange as though it weren't happening at all._ "We're down in five… four… three…"

 _Hunk watched. He stared at the point he'd seen the movement as he slowly tightened his muscles further to gear for action, rising from his hidey-hole on slow legs._ _His heart bounded a drum beat in his chest._ _This was it. This was everything that Hunk needed in_ _his life, a life after his mom. It wasn't what he'd expected but... he revelled in it._

_Two._

_One._

"Moving out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So this might be getting a little ahead of myself, but here goes.  
> I hope you liked the chapter. And the story thus far. I am very aware, however, that it will be jumping all over the place, may be confusing, and might even miss out some integral scenes or pieces that you lovely readers long to see.  
> So. Have any suggestions? For in the midst of this story, set before it (or before Picture Perfect People) or after when I finish posting? Let me know! I've absolutely adored writing this series and would love for the chance to do more, so if you have any suggestions than let me know either in the comments or, if you'd prefer, through tumblr @aelys-althea. I'd love to hear from you, so please, SEND ME PROMPTS and I'll see what I can do :)


	3. Keith

_Voltron: Year two, Month 9/12 of rebirth_

_Paladin of Operation: Red_

* * *

The feeling of soft sand beneath his runners was a battle to plough through with every step, but Keith didn't slow. He ran as though fire nipped at his heels, and he didn't pause for a second. He hadn't slowed for nearly an hour. The tang of salt, of sea and beach, flooded his nostrils with each short, sharp breath.

Keith was a good runner. He was fast; this he knew. He might not be good at many things, but he knew he was fast. It felt… good. Both to run and to realise that he was actually good at something. To acknowledge it. To know that it would be useful to him and what he wanted to be.

Alongside him, the spread of residences, of streets and shopfronts and pedestrians, was already thrumming with life. Even an hour before when the sun had only just begun creeping above the horizon, when the darkness of autumnal dawn had faded, it hadn't been silent. There were always cars moving, always walkers or, like Keith, runners striding their paces through the wee hours. Long Island Beach was no exception to the rule, though it was admittedly a change of scenery to when Keith had been living with the Tulsons.

That was different. Changed. Much had changed in the past months, but for Keith it had all begun when he turned eighteen. When he left the Tulsons.

Sara and Peter weren't bad people. They truly weren't. Even Clyde wasn't a bad person, though Keith would admit to anyone who cared to ask that he was objectionable. Olly too, but he'd likely grow out of turning to Clyde's role model ways at some point. None of them were 'bad', but Keith was so happy to leave that he barely waited for Sara and Peter to climb from bed the morning of his birthday to accompany him to the government agency.

They came. They came with Keith just as they'd said they would, and even wore bright smiles, as if they were truly happy for Keith and his decision. He knew otherwise. He knew that Sara in particular was a little heartbroken for some reason, and it wasn't evidenced simply because he caught her staring at him more than once through the car trip.

"What have we done wrong, Keith?" she'd asked numerous times since Keith had told them he was leaving.

Keith could only shake his head. How could he explain that he never felt comfortable with any family he was forced to live with? That it was risky to even attempt to trust them because in one moment they could care and the next they could be shipping him back into the system with a shake of their heads and an expression of faux regret? That each time he was introduced to another new family, all he could see were the countless possibilities spread before him as to how they could find fault in him and send him away.

Keith couldn't say any of that. He didn't believe he was a cruel person, even if his friends – namely Lance – claimed he was tactlessly blunt a lot of the time. Sara and Peter hadn't done anything wrong yet. He just didn't trust them. Keith had been forced upon them and there was no way such a situation could naturally breed trust. Not after how often Keith had seen it turned on its head. Trust was placed in those that were chosen to be trusted and Keith…

There were five people in the world that he trusted. Five. Or six, if one particularly erratic chauffeur driver was included, which Keith wasn't entirely sure he could count. Coran was kind of manic when behind the wheel.

For once, the process passed smoothly. No hiccups and no difficulties. The paperwork had already been written up weeks ago in preparation, and all Keith needed to do was sign the final waver below Sara and Peter's names.

The social worker, one of many that Keith recognised as little more than a face, studied him across her desk as he laid the pen down. She studied him for a long moment and perhaps wasn't even aware of Sara and Peter's awkward shifting in their seats, utterly disregarded.

"This is it," she finally said. "You've got your papers signed, your inheritance has been file, the decision's made." Her voice low and deliberate. The way she spoke wasn't quite as one might to a child, but the condescension was there regardless. She thought Keith was foolish for his decision. "This is the final chance, Keith. There's no going back after this."

"Unless you want to," Sara said hastily. She drew Keith's attention with a slightly desperate hum for attention. Her forehead was crinkled slightly as she turned towards him, Peter's similarly creased as he nodded at her side. "Our door is always open if you need it, Keith."

Why were they so kind? Keith didn't trust them, couldn't bring himself to, but he could recognise that much. Why? Why were they so generous when he'd given them nothing and no reason to be? It was unfathomable.

Shaking his head, Keith managed a small smile. "Thank you for the offer, but I'm fine."

"You've a room set aside for yourself?" the social worker said in the same words that she'd asked Keith over and over before. "Somewhere to stay? Or will you be perhaps moving to the residence left to you by your parents?"

Keith turned back to her, to where she studied him intently with the verge of a frown twitching her eyebrows. His inheritance. The house that had been left to him. Keith didn't know what to make of that situation. He hadn't even considered any kind of inheritance, any wealth or property left by his parents – which there apparently was. He didn't know what to do with it so Keith simply… left it. He left it as it had been for years. It didn't feel like his anyway.

He shook his head to the social worker's words. "No. I'm staying with a friend."

"A friend?"

"A friend."

The woman pursed her lips slightly but nodded as if to say, "I'll allow it". "And your job? You're still employed at, what was it." She paused and dropped her gaze to the bundle of files on the table before her. "'FastPass'? On the corner of George Street?"

 _Oh, here we go,_ Keith thought and bit back a sigh. Meeting the woman's gaze, he shook his head. "I recently admitted my application for resignation, actually."

The social worker snapped her gaze towards him, her fingers curling into the papers slightly. "You quit," she stated more than asked.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want to work there anymore."

The woman blinked at Keith, a frown bowing her brow, and he realised he'd just voiced what Lance frequently called one of his 'moments'. That to some people, the simple truth wasn't enough. So he expanded. "I'm moving out to Long Island Beach to stay with my friend and the commute will be incompatible."

"Incompatible," the woman echoed. Her frown deepened. "Keith, this isn't a good way to start things off. To best support yourself in the future, firm foundations in the initial months of your independence are of the utmost importance. Relying upon the inheritance your parents left you is not the most appropriate course of action. Not in the least." She shook her head. "I'm sure we've talked about this."

Before Keith could voice a reply, to deny that he wasn't so stupid as to chew through his parents' savings even if he did feel it was right to dip into them, Peter spoke. "Keith, why didn't you say you'd quit your job?"

"We didn't even realise," Sara said, and she sounded faintly horrified for the fact. Keith was still at odds as to why she seemed such a way sometimes. He wasn't her son. He was barely even an acquaintance. The semi-owned cat that he noticed she sometimes fed from the kitchen windowsill had about as much of a presence as he did. The Tulson's house was little more than a place for him sleep.

Why either of them cared was a mystery to Keith that he doubted he'd ever understand.

"It's fine," he said, though he doubted such words were truly that reassuring. "I've got a substantial amount in savings, and I intend to search for employment shortly." It wasn't exactly the truth, but Keith suspected it was what both the social worker and Sara and Peter wanted to hear.

Except that the social worker didn't seem eased at all. Her frown hadn't shifted in the slightest. "You have a written resume?" she said curtly. "You have ideas as to where you'd like to take yourself? Prospects for your future?"

"I do," Keith said simply. He didn't feel he needed to expand upon them.

Maybe the woman realised that she wasn't going to get any more out of him for after another moment of staring she sighed. With a shake of her head, she dropped her gaze back down to her papers. "Well. That's heartening, I suppose." She didn't seem very heartened in Keith's opinion, but then he couldn't be sure. He'd never been very good at reading people.

They exchanged brief words after that. Nothing of consequence and most simply reiterating those they'd shared before. Then Keith was rising to his feet and leading Sara and Peter from the room. The agency was a network of carpeted halls and white-walled rooms that looked like little more than cubicles, and the fluorescent lights created an odd dark-lightness within the building's windowless depths. And yet with every step they took towards the exit, Keith felt as though it grew just a little lighter.

They were at Sara and Peter's car, unpacking the handful of boxes that were all Keith was taking with him when he left, when Shiro arrived. Or, more correctly, when everyone arrived. They appeared in a flood of motion, a pair of cars that pulled alongside the Tulson's with one distinctly less smoothly than the other. Keith didn't need to recognise Allura's car to know which one Coran drove.

He'd barely placed the box in his arms upon the ground before his friends were upon him. Naturally, it was Lance who appeared at his side first, and before Keith had a moment to get a word out he found himself overwhelmed by long arms, curling fingers and the warm press of lips upon his own. A moment later and Lance pulled away from him to offer a beaming grin that radiated that same warmth. "Happy birthday, _cariño_ ," he said before leaning in for another kiss.

Lance was like that. A little overwhelming, a little handsy at times, he was always ready with kisses and openly affectionate. He was a vocal person, and Keith had learnt even before they'd begun dating that he was the sort to use nicknames. Or pet names, as the case may be. He wondered at what point Lance had noticed that, for reasons Keith couldn't quite understand himself, he was taken with the way Lance slipped easily into Spanish.

Once, such open affection – or any affection at all – would have sent Keith turning on his heel and fleeing immediately, if not leaving a well-aimed punch in his wake. That was then, though. Or perhaps, more correctly, that would be for other people. Lance was different. Everything about him was different; his sharp features, his ridiculously animated eyebrows, the way his eyes seemed to light up as his whole face transformed into a smile, and even his incessant talking. It was different to Keith and he…

Keith maybe loved it just a little.

Lance knew it, too. Or at least Keith suspected he did. Maybe Lance was just as happy to have an arm almost permanently slung around Keith's shoulders or waist as Keith was to have it there. For whatever reason, Keith was content. He'd never quite been able to shrug Lance off of him. He'd never truly wanted to.

Expectedly, Lance slipped to his side and hooked an arm around Keith's shoulders as usual. He spared a wave for Sara and Peter where they'd turned at the arrival of Keith's friend before dropping his attention to the boxes sitting almost dejectedly on the bitumen. "Red, it's just sad how little you're bringing with you."

Keith, who was still caught between surprise at the arrival of his friends, smothered delight at Lance's use of a pet name, his confusion and then self-deprecation because he'd actually forgotten it was his birthday, glanced briefly towards him. "What?"

Lance gestured again. "That. You have money, right?"

"Right," Keith said slowly.

"We're going to go and by you some new clothes."

"No thank you."

"You literally live in this jacket of yours." Lance plucked indicatively at the red and white sleeve on Keith's arm.

Keith shrugged. "So? I like it."

"Ever heard of versatility?"

"I believe I have, yes."

"You should try it some time."

"I'm quite content as I am, thank you."

They didn't have a chance to speak further, for at that moment the rest of the so-called paladins of Voltron, crossing the parking lot in chattering step, stopped before them. All of them wore varying depictions of greeting, wide smiles spread to accompany words of welcome.

Shiro, standing alongside Allura as he paused in their conversation, turned to Keith with his arms folded easily over his chest and barely the slightest bit discomforted by the prosthetic that he still claimed 'didn't feel quite right'. He nodded his head, face softening slightly in warm greeting.

Allura, tall and straight and practically glowing in the morning light, raised her hand in similar greeting. Coran, just behind her with his fiery hair spiked into a rather curious point that perfectly matched the pointed ends of his moustache, fumbled his car keys into his pocket as he nattered seemingly to himself more than anyone in particular

Pidge, who really should have been at school in Keith's opinion, stood with a small smile upon her face – his face? He was fairly sure from that morning on Voltron that she was DiffWitch – rocked from heels to toes as she drew her gaze curiously to the agency building behind Keith. She grinned toothily as she settled her attention back upon him.

And Hunk. Keith rested his attention upon Hunk for just a little longer than he did the rest of his friends, as he'd taken to doing of late. Most of his friends did, Keith knew. Hunk was…

Poor Hunk.

Keith had never had a lot of sympathy for other people. He'd never let himself consider anyone else enough to feel anything past momentary pity. But things were different now. Quite without knowing how he'd managed it, Keith had landed himself in the midst of a clutch of friends who truly seemed to care for him, and who he found himself caring for just as much. He was happy when they were happy, and when they were hurting, he felt himself hurt just a little as well.

Hunk was hurting. He'd been hurting unshakeably in the past weeks, and that pain didn't seem likely to abate with any promptness. He'd lost his mom, and though Keith would likely never been able to understand what such a loss truly felt like, he could see it. He could feel the grief, the _mourning_ , that radiated from Hunk in a shadow of that which had emanated from him when it had first happened.

Months ago Hunk had lost his mom, and yet Keith still remembered the night vividly in his mind. He remembered the mad rush to the hospital alongside his friends, remembered as they all stumbled through the front doors and hastened to Hunk's side. He remembered how Hunk had been seated alongside his gran, bowed heavily with elbows upon his knees and head hanging as though he was too exhausted to lift it.

Keith remembered how he'd been blankly expressionless as he'd first glanced towards the rest of Voltron's paladins. That was until he crumpled into a mess of hearty sobs and all but fallen to the floor. He dissolved into tears as soon as Allura had touched his shoulder in tentative commiseration.

There had been no hope for Hunk's mom. She'd passed before the paramedics even arrived. Keith saw in Hunk's face that, desperate as he'd been, he'd understood that. He'd known that she was gone. Truthfully, Keith suspected that Hunk had known his mom wouldn't last for much longer for a long time. In his opinion, and to his knowledge, stroke victims didn't. They simply didn't endure. That Hunk's mom had made it so far was something of a miracle as it was.

It didn't make it any easier when the inevitable happened, however. Hunk's mom was his life. Without her, he was a dinghy cast adrift without an oar.

In the past months, Keith had seen a lot of Hunk. All of his friends had, and no one commented on his apparent need to be alongside someone at all times. With Lance at his barbershop, with Keith sometimes to simply spend time at the convenience store when he was working, with Pidge to help with homework when he could. With Allura too, as he'd taken to visiting her university at times that seemed to welcome him into its halls easily enough. Shiro too, and Keith knew that Hunk had taken to sleeping at Shiro's apartment often of late. He didn't seem to want to be alone, which he would be when his gran returned to her own house of a night.

Keith had never had a problem with being alone, so he couldn't understand Hunk's dependence. But looking at his heavy eyes, the struggle it seemed to take him to smile when it had once come so easily to him, the effort of his step when at times he seemed to have to drag himself more than simply walk, Keith couldn't protest the company. He'd never been particularly close to Hunk out of all of the paladins, but he didn't begrudge his companionship. He and Hunk had found camaraderie in an easy enough silence when Keith worked. Keith's manager couldn't even seem to fault his presence; Hunk was hardly an imposing or deterring presence, despite his size.

Staring at Hunk across the parking lot, Keith registered a number of things. That he looked to have been a little better rested from the previous night, for one. For another, he seemed slightly more relaxed, less strained than he usually was. Keith suspected he'd spent the night at Allura's; she seemed to have that effect on Hunk. Or on most of them, for that matter. Though not overtly sympathetic, she had a way of breaking down a situation into its basics that seemed to make it more tolerable.

Hunk's smile was almost natural as he stopped alongside the rest of their friends before Keith, Lance and the Tulsons. "Happy birthday, Keith," he tagged onto the end of similar sentiments of the rest of his friends.

"Thank you," Keith said, shrugging awkwardly beneath Lance's arm. "To be honest, I sort of forgot it's my birthday."

"How can you forget?" Lance asked, jostling him slightly. "Especially when something so momentous is happening."

"Perhaps that's why?" Allura said with a knowing smile. "Thinking of other things?"

"Understandably," Shiro said, nodding.

"Something like that," Keith said. Then he drew his gaze over all of them once more. "What are you all doing here, by the way?"

Lance dropped his chin onto Keith's shoulder. "You kill me just a little bit when you say stuff like that," he murmured.

"Like what?"

"Like being utterly oblivious to the fact that we're your friends and want to spend your birthday with you?" Pidge explained.

Keith spared Pidge a glance. "DiffWitch?" he asked by way of clarification. It was the way all of the paladins had taken to asking Pidge which pronouns to use. It simply seemed less crude than fumbling through the paces and possibly slipping up by not asking at all.

Pidge nodded. "Yep."

"Shouldn't you be at school?"

"Yep."

"Pidge seems to think her education is less important on a day like today," Allura said with a sigh.

"Which it _is_ ," Pidge said deliberately. She spared Allura a glance before turning back to Keith with her smile reaffixed. "Independence and all that. It's like you're becoming a real adult, Keith."

"Thank you?" Keith said. He wasn't sure if it was a compliment or not.

"I don't remember you making such a fuss about Lance and me on our birthdays," Hunk said. "Should I be offended?"

"Technically, we didn't know it was your birthday when it passed," Shiro said, though his smile was a little sheepish. "We hadn't exchanged birthdays at that point."

"While Lance…" Pidge trailed off indicatively.

Keith could feel Lance's pointedly raised eyebrow even without glancing towards him. "Yes, Pidge? What exactly are you suggesting?"

"I believe that you might be eighteen but will always possess the inner child that makes you _you_ ," Allura said diplomatically.

Lance laughed. "This is why I like you best, Allura."

"I thought you liked Keith best?" Allura said.

"Besides Keith."

"Aren't I your best friend?" Hunk said with a slight frown that even to Keith's supposedly oblivious eyes looked feigned. Maybe he was actually getting better at reading expressions.

"Which you are," Lance hastened to say.

"You're crossing your wires, Lance," Pidge smirked.

"Now, now, let's stop teasing, everybody," Coran said, speaking up for the first time. "It's perfectly fine to have multiple favourites."

In an instant, Coran's words were leapt upon and either rationalised or openly rebuked. Keith didn't bother contributing. It was often difficult to get a word in amidst the paladins. Coran seemed to manage better than most people outside of Voltron, however. Unlike the Tulsons.

As Keith's friends dissolved into rapid-fire exchanges, he spared a glance for Sara and Peter. They'd met Lance several times, and Shiro too, for Shiro considered it his place to step forwards and introduce himself when Keith had mentioned that Sara in particular had been concerned about his future residence. But the rest of the paladins were something else. Their wide-eyes and turning heads as they attempted to glance to whichever suggested they were just a little overwhelmed.

Finally, however, Shiro seemed to recall himself and drew everyone to a hush with barely a word of request. "We're getting off topic, though," he said. He turned to Keith with a small smile spared for the Tulsons. "Sorry to intrude upon you, Sara, Peter. I hope it all went well. Keith?"

Keith shrugged a shoulder. "Shouldn't it have?"

"I was only wondering."

"Yeah, it was fine. I'm all set."

"Wonderful," Allura said, her smile growing warm. She too glanced towards the Tulsons but when she spoke it was more to Keith. "If it's alright with everyone, maybe we could go out for morning brunch? Have something of a celebration?"

"A birthday celebration," Lance said, and once more Keith could hear the smile in his voice before he glanced his way.

"You have a thing for birthdays?" Keith asked. "It's not that exciting, you know."

Lance pouted through his words. "Most people do, actually. Happiness, joy, presents, being the centre of attention –"

"Yeah, I can understand why you might not like them, Keith," Pidge interrupted with a roll of her eyes.

Lance, naturally, jumped on the defensive, but Keith spared him only half an ear as he glanced towards Sara and Peter once more. Shiro had drifted to their side to murmur something that sounded like an offer for them to accompany their brunch outing. Both the Tulsons glanced towards Keith at that, as though awaiting his say on the matter.

Keith was, admittedly, a little stumped. He wasn't great with people as it was, and though as Allura had claimed they were more than prepared to 'coach' him, he didn't think he was all that much better. He simply wasn't a people person and didn't really care for that fact. Why did he have to be sociable with anyone other than the friends who seemed to like his company regardless of how he behaved? Keith didn't usually get along with others, but it was generally a rule that he didn't spend time with people who didn't want to spend time with him. No one who didn't clearly state it.

Like the paladins. Like Lance, who Keith likely wouldn't have even grown to realise he liked as more than a friend if he hadn't been such a constant presence.

"You can come if you'd like," Keith said. "I don't really know what we're doing, but…"

"Brunch," Hunk repeated promptly, and he actually looked vaguely enthusiastic for the notion. That was something, Keith supposed. Hunk seemed to struggle to get excited about anything of late. "Then we'll drive to Shiro's and drop your stuff of."

"What little you have, anyway," Allura said, and she dropped her frowning gaze to the boxes. "Maybe Lance is right, Keith. Maybe we should take you shopping."

"No thank you," Keith said shortly. He didn't need anything, and the thought of shopping with other people was more than a little disconcerting.

"Online buying," Pidge said with a solemn nod of her head. "It's much easier than braving local malls."

"I thought you quite enjoyed coming out with Allura and me last week, Pidge," Coran said, peering at her expectantly. "You seemed to be having fun."

"Reluctantly."

"But fun nonetheless."

"Watch it, Pidge," Lance said. "Your pessimism's starting to show again."

"And that's a bad thing? Maybe I want it to be seen."

After that, they deteriorated into an argumentative exchange that even Hunk jumped into this time. Allura's attempts at rationalisation became lost beneath Lance and Pidge's rapid-fire exchange, Coran's seemingly random contributions and even Shiro's brief contributions. Keith found himself glancing at Sara and Peter once more and was surprised to find himself rather than the paladins the focus of their attention. Even more surprisingly, Sara was smiling slightly. A little sadly, but definitely a smile.

When she spoke it was barely audible through the chatter that flooded the car park. "Thank you for the offer to come, but I think maybe we'll head home. You seem like you could use the time with your friends."

Keith glanced back to where Shiro had taken himself briefly to Pidge's side, gaze turned towards her with lips quivering slightly as she spouted something with sincere indignation. Or maybe it wasn't sincere; sometimes it was difficult to tell with Pidge.

"Yeah," he replied in a murmur, and Lance glanced his way, momentarily distracted from his loud, exclaiming exchange with Coran. "Maybe. Thanks."

"What was that?" Lance asked, leaning forward to peer around Keith towards the Tulsons. "You say something."

Keith didn't reply but he did hook his arm around Lance's waist in turn. Even after months of easy contact, it still felt a little strange sometimes to be so… _touchy_. Keith had never quite understood how Lance managed it with such ease. It just didn't feel natural. Not bad – and far from it a lot of the time, too – but not natural either.

He nodded to Sara and Peter before continuing quietly. "Thank you for driving me today. And for… everything."

It felt awkward. No, it _was_ awkward. Keith had never been good at talking to people – or perhaps he had been, long ago, but he'd seemingly lost that skill.

Then Sara and Peter left.

In the months since, Keith had settled into his new lifestyle. He'd grown to learn the layout of the streets surrounding Shiro's Long Island Beach apartment; the shortest route to the mall, to the train station, to the gym that Shiro introduced him to and he'd begun to accompany him to on a frequent basis. The room Shiro lent him uneasily became his own, and then it wasn't uneasy at all, because this room was different to any Keith had inhabited before. It felt more like…

His.

He picked up a job at job at a local café, which Lance thought was fantastic because, "Uniforms shouldn't look good, Red" but also hypocritical because, "You hardly even drink coffee anyway". It wasn't an exceptional job, but at least it covered the rent that Keith insisted he pay to Shiro. Shiro stopped protesting after the first month.

And he spent time with his friends. Keith finally – and it _was_ finally, because the rest of his friends had long ago accepted Allura's suggestion – accepted his own room at the paladin-dubbed Castle of Altea. Voltron had spent more than one weekend in its high-ceilinged rooms that smelled of fine-grained wood and warm, thick carpets. Keith continued his driving lessons with Shiro and even once accepted Coran's suggestion that he allow him to act as his supervisor, though he deafened himself to Coran's suggestions because he was _really_ wasn't a good driver.

Hunk spent every other night at Shiro's or Allura's, so Keith found himself seeing more of him than he'd expected. He even accompanied him on occasion to Pidge's house – only when Pidge's mom wasn't there, of course – or to the library or the local café with more of an intention to catch up and simply spend time with one another than to assist Pidge with homework that she never actually needed help with.

And Lance. Keith spent the months after his graduation with Lance as much as he could manage. Keith had rarely wanted to spend time with anyone before meeting the paladins, but with Lance it was even more different. It took a deliberate, mentally chiding reminder on his own part for Keith to recall that he _couldn't_ ask if Lance would move out to Shiro's apartment and room with him, even if Shiro claimed he was entirely fine with another renter. That he _couldn't,_ because Lance was committed to staying with his family, to helping to support them and to lending a hand in a crazy household that overwhelmed Keith with its noise and vibrancy every time he visited. Lance clearly adored them and their craziness. Keith couldn't ask him to leave that.

He wasn't used to liking people. Not even after a year of being a part of Voltron was he used to it. Keith wasn't familiar to touching other people with more than a passing brush of shoulders, or of others touching him with any kind of familiarity. But with the paladins it was different. With _Lance_ it was different. They – _he_ was the exception.

Apparently.

Lance spent as much time at Long Island Beach as he could, however, and when he wasn't, Keith took himself back to the city instead. He had dinner at the McClain household, accompanied Lance to the barbershop on his days off – and often with Hunk in tow – and even sometimes slept on Lance's couch rather than making his way back to Long Island Beach.

Life was good. It took Keith a time to understand that, but when he did it struck him like a blow with its unexpectedness. It was good, better perhaps than Keith had ever experienced it before, and he was… happy. Keith was happy. And the rest of his friends appeared happy too. Shiro had his difficulties with his arm, but he was struggling through it. Allura still attended check-ups on a regular basis, but she was reportedly doing exceptionally. Hunk was still struggling to accommodate the loss of his mother, something that Keith couldn't imagine him ever truly recovering from, but he was less withdrawn than he had been.

Pidge seemed to be forcibly maintaining her good humour, despite the fact that all wasn't going entirely as planned with her mom. She seemed to only grow more grounded and sure of herself with each passing hurdle, each hiccup that could have been a set back. And Lance was always happy. Even when he was sad he was somehow happy, pushing a smile through a frown, turning a joke from a melancholic situation. He didn't have it easy, did Lance McClain, but he was happy nonetheless. And Keith found that he maybe loved him a little bit for that.

It would never remain static, however. Change was always being wrought, always inflicted, regardless of whether Keith deliberately intended it or not. For himself, for the rapidly approaching change he felt at his core, it arose deliberately.

Regret for the situation wasn't what he'd planned for, though. Not at all.

Keith wouldn't stay the same. He had a plan, a future that he was still tentatively feeling out. A future that Shiro had urged him to thoroughly consider before committing himself to it. And Lance was a part of that future that Keith wasn't sure how to accommodate. Not because he didn't want him in it, but because…

"I think I'd be pretty happy if everything stayed exactly as it is," Lance said idly one day as he and Keith walked back from his father's barbershop together. The sigh he breathed out sounded as content as his words and the smile he turned towards Keith glowed through the evening gloom. He grasped Keith's hand firmly, interlacing their fingers in a way that had become so familiar that Keith immediately responded in kind. "Me at my papá's shop, you living with Shiro and at the café, the rest of the paladins all practically within shouting distance… I think I could handle this forever."

Keith couldn't say anything to that. Not when, with his plans, he was going to shatter that stasis like a hammer through glass.

Keith was training. He'd been training since he'd graduated, and even before that. Every morning he'd made it a habit to run along the beach before looping back and taking himself through the streets of Long Island Beach back to Shiro's apartment. He'd taken up MMA simply for the offhanded suggestion Lance made upon discovering that he knew how to use his fists, and it seemed like it might be useful for him in the long run. Keith had been attending seminars and researching online, because he would follow Shiro's instructions and ensure that he truly knew what he was doing before he made the decision and took the final step.

He was going to join the army. That was his intention. The only problem was that, in doing so, it would be destroying what Lance so longed to remain unchanged. Keith had always striven to live for himself, and he'd long ago decided to put himself first, but Lance's very presence had thrown a spanner in the works.

Running along the beach as dawn slowly splashed light and colour upon his surroundings, Keith finally began to slow. He could have run forever, perhaps, and the very action of running served to waylay his thoughts just slightly. Losing himself in the midst of action, of controlled breathing and the clench of muscles straining in his legs – the very act of ignoring that strain and pushing through it provided enough of a distraction, and Keith had come to cling to that at times.

He wasn't used to feeling guilty for his actions. Especially not when it considered others. It was a distinctly uncomfortable situation.

Remaining removed forever would have been impossible, however. Not only because Keith _couldn't_ run forever – realistically he couldn't, because Keith wasn't so foolish as to think he could literally outrun his thoughts – but because there was a nagging presence that followed him everywhere. A presence that, even then, was buzzing incessantly through his phone in vibrations that seeped through his pocket.

Shaking his head, Keith drew his phone from his pocket as he made his way off the beach. Breathing heavily, he didn't spare any of his fellow morning beach-runners a glance before leaving them in his wake. Automatically, for it had become reflexive to do so now, he found himself clicking into the Voltron symbol already flashing in indication of messages waiting to be read. The image of five interwoven lions sprung onto the screen, one that only seven people in the world had access to seeing.

Keith wiped the thin layer of sweat from his brow as he jogged up the wooden slats of beach steps half buried in sand. In the middle of autumn as it was, it wasn't quite cold enough to require a jacket to go outside at such an early hour, but neither was it warm enough to work up any real heat. It was perfect weather for running, really. Keith likely would have gotten lost in simply _going_ had Voltron and its paladins not been a reminder he couldn't ignore.

Expectedly, the chatroom was riddled with messages in blues, greens and yellows. From barely a glance of the colours Keith could discern that Allura and Shiro hadn't arisen yet and Coran was absent. Not that Coran attended to Voltron quite as much as the rest of them did. Despite that it was barely seven o'clock, it wasn't all that much of a surprise that everyone was awake. Voltron often kept strange hours.

Colours and words flashed across the screen as Keith scrolled. Their paladin names. Always their paladin names in Voltron.

_Sharpshooter18: He doesn't know how to use a train line is his problem._

_Sharpshooter18: Who in New York doesn't know how to use a train?_

_DiffWizard: I'm pretty sure you're exaggerating that one, Sharpshooter. Maybe he's just distracted or something._

_Sharpshooter18: He literally walked into a door._

_Butterfingers has entered the chatroom._

_Butterfingers: Morning, everyone. What are we talking about?_

_Sharpshooter18: Life and train-travelling incompetence._

_Butterfingers: You riding around on trains, Sharpshooter?_

_Butterfingers: Why are you even up so early?_

_DiffWizard: He's going over to the Beach. Already._

_DiffWizard: You were complaining just yesterday that you hardly got the chance to sleep in these days. Why would you shirk the opportunity?_

_Sharpshooter18: Hey, speak for yourself. You're up too._

_DiffWizard: I have school._

_DiffWizard: Unfortunately._

_DiffWizard: Such is the trials of a student._

_Sharpshooter18: You don't have to get up this early, though, even with school. Surely not. How far are you from school again?_

_DiffWizard: About twenty minutes by bus._

_Sharpshooter18: I feel no sympathy for you. I've already been through it for just as long as you'll have to._

_DiffWizard: So considerate of you._

_Sharpshooter18: I said I wasn't sympathetic. You shouldn't expect me to be._

_Butterfingers: You didn't answer my question Sharpshooter_.

Keith was grateful to Hunk for his words. He'd missed that particular the conversation by nearly half an hour. What Lance was doing up quite so early was a mystery to him. Pidge too, but then Keith had already discovered that Pidge functioned on hours of operation much the same as he did. He was convinced Pidge spent most of his time nocturnal and half suspected he'd perfected the art of sleeping with his eyes open so he could do so throughout the day. He wouldn't put it past, Pidge. When Pidge wanted something, he'd cross a desert to get it.

Like the army. Keith knew, even years before Pidge was able to enlist, that he would make good his commitment. No matter what. Pidge shared that with Keith, at least.

_Sharpshooter18: I'm working at the shop this afternoon._

_DiffWizard: Which explains next to nothing._

_Sharpshooter18: So I'm coming over early to spend time with everyone at the Beach. I start at midday, so the earlier the better._

_Sharpshooter18: And thank you for your interruption there, DiffWizard. I hadn't finished my explanation so there's no need to be an ass._

_DiffWizard: If you didn't want an interruption then you need to say everything in one bout. Amateur._

_DiffWizard: Are you sure you know how chatrooms work?_

_Butterfingers: Pretty sure he's been here as long as the rest of us, DiffWizard._

_Sharpshooter18: Thank you, Butters. You're a true friend._

_Sharpshooter18: Besides, I'm pretty sure I signed up to Voltron before you, Diff._

_DiffWizard: Don't call me that. Please, God, don't call me that._

Keith glanced up briefly from his phone to get his bearings, casting a quick scan around himself and started down the road to his left. He recognised his surrounding, for there weren't really all that many streets to get lost along on Long Island Beach. He'd passed through most of them before.

Keith found himself smiling as he did so, however. A year ago, Lance's incessant use of nicknames might have irked him slightly. Then it amused him for his apparent inability to shorten one from Keith's already simplistic name had been entertaining. Now it was almost expected that he would continue to find new names to call them all. Diff was far from being a new one for Pidge, as was Butters for Hunk. Just as Red was for Keith.

Keith had always had a fondness for when Lance called him Red.

Scrolling through the conversation, Keith was about to slip his phone back into his pocket for run once more when he caught sight of his own name towards the end of the conversation. As he read, he couldn't help but roll his eyes, if a little fondly.

_Sharpshooter18: You can't practice avoidance. I'm not an idiot._

_Sharpshooter18: You always wake up at an ungodly hour, Red. Don't ignore me._

_Sharpshooter18: Red_

_Sharpshooter18: Red_

_Sharpshooter18: Red_

_Sharpshooter18: Red_

_DiffWizard: Please stop. He's clearly not going to answer you._

_Butterfingers: He's up, though. BlackLion and the Princess are still in bed I think, but Red's up._

_Sharpshooter18: Did you guys all stay the night last night?_

_Butterfingers: Just me and the Princess. Wimbleton-Smythe left too. He said something about lumping too much cheese with a biscuit in a something or other._

_DiffWizard: Cheese with a biscuit in a sardine can, yeah?_

_Butterfingers: That makes no sense. What does that even mean?_

_DiffWizard: No idea. I've just heard him say it before._

_Sharpshooter18: He doesn't have to make sense. He's awesome._

_DiffWizard: I never said he wasn't._

_Sharpshooter18: Hold on, I'm getting side-tracked. Red, talk back to me, please._

_Sharpshooter18: Red_

_Sharpshooter18: Red_

_DiffWizard: Dammit, don't start this again._

Pausing in step as he left the beach. Keith edged to one side of the sidewalk that didn't really need to be vacated for the sparse scattering of pedestrians about already. He tapped out a reply.

_Red: I'm running. I'll be back at BlackLion's soon._

_Butterfingers: At yours, you mean. It's yours and BlackLion's, Red._

_Red: Are we having this conversation again?_

_Butterfingers: Just saying._

_Sharpshooter18: Why are you running? Again?_

_Sharpshooter18: You ran just yesterday._

_Red: Is that a problem?_

_Sharpshooter18: It will be if I get to your place and you're not there._

_DiffWizard: Demanding husbands. Tsk tsk, you can't live with them._

_Sharpshooter18: Shut up, Diff._

_Red: How far away are you?_

_Sharpshooter18: How far away are you?_

_Red: I asked you first._

_Butterfingers: Aw, you guys are so cute._

_DiffWizard: Unless they're actually pissed at each other. Then it's just kind of funny._

_DiffWizard: And please keep your shipping inclinations to a minimum, Butterfingers. At least on Voltron._

_Butterfingers: What does that even mean when you say that?_

_Red: I'm not pissed._

_Sharpshooter18: I'm not pissed._

_Sharpshooter18: Jinx._

_Red: Are you a five year old?_

_Sharpshooter18: Mentally? Probably about that, yeah._

Keith rolled his eyes. At least Lance wasn't denying it.

_Red: How far away are you?_

_Sharpshooter18: About four stops. Then just the walk from the station._

_Red: Okay. I'll run back fast then._

_Sharpshooter18: You didn't answer my question._

Keith didn't. He didn't spare a moment to reply but instead slipped his phone back into his pocket and started at a run once more. A fast run, because he always considered there was little point in jogging if it didn't push him. Besides, he had a deadline to meet now. Lance would only be able to stay for a few hours, so Keith would have to make the most of it.

And probably fulfil what Shiro had suggested he do. What Shiro had been telling him to do for weeks now. Keith was dreading it, but… he should probably do it.

Sprinting across town, when Keith drew alongside Shiro's familiar, richly-dressed apartment block – a complex that had become something of Keith's own, too – he was panting heavily. His legs began to protest in earnest as he slowed, feet throbbing slightly in his shoes and sweat spotting his brow more thickly now, but Keith hardly noticed. Turning into the driveway, he started towards the tall, admittedly impressive pale walls of the apartment block, weaving past sedate garden fronts enclosed in little brick-lined shrubberies that had already lost their splash of fiery colours.

Keith climbed the stairs – because habit had him always climbing the stairs – and passed over polished floors towards room thirty-three with barely a glance around himself. He'd never been terribly appreciative of material possessions, and though he could recognise wealth and expenses he was largely unaffected by it. Lance was, Keith knew. The first time – the first few times, in fact – that he'd visited Shiro's apartment, he'd been discomforted enough that even Keith had noticed.

But Keith? He didn't care so much. Why should it matter if something was richly furnished or sparsely – even cheaply – so? So long as it was functional and held the necessary basics, Keith didn't really care how something looked or what it cost.

He'd barely opened the door when a call sounded down the hallway in Hunk's thick, sleep-laden voice. "Keith?"

Dropping to a crouch to untie his shoes, Keith hummed his acknowledgement. At Hunk's triumphant, _"Yes!"_ he raised his head. "Did you bet on me to get here first, by any chance?"

"Of course."

"Against Lance?"

"Well, Pidge isn't going to bet against you. He thinks you're superhuman most of the time."

"I'm hardly superhuman," Keith muttered as he passed down the hallway. He paused briefly in the living room alongside the couch that Hunk was sprawled upon. He was nestled in the same pillow and blanket he'd used the previous night and countless nights previously that tangled in a mess around him. Shiro had offered to buy him an actual bed that he could tuck somewhere in the apartment, or at least a futon, but Hunk claimed Shiro's couch was "the most comfortable piece of furniture I've ever had the delight of sleeping on" so Shiro subsided.

Hunk blinked up at Keith with heavy eyes. His phone was clasped in his hand but he rested it against his chest as Keith paused alongside him. "Morning," he said, still a little groggily.

"Good morning to you too," Keith replied. "Are you still talking to Pidge?"

"Yeah." Hunk glanced down at his phone, flipping it upright for a moment. "He's having a bit of a rant about school."

"That's not particularly unusual."

"No, it's not. Although he got pretty aggressive about it about ten minutes ago, so I'm guessing his mom might have said something to him."

Keith propped his hands on the back of Hunk's couch for a moment, chewing his lip thoughtfully. Keith wasn't a particularly empathetic or even sympathetic person, but for some reason… "Do you think I should talk to him?"

Hunk glanced towards him once more. A slight smile touched his lips, and though it wasn't as wide as those he'd once worn so easily it was genuine enough. "If you'd like. He seems to like talking to you about it."

Keith didn't know why. For whatever reason, he and Pidge seemed to get along quite well. Or, more correctly, Pidge simply seemed to enjoy talking to him. It was a strange realisation when Keith had first happened upon it. Before Voltron, it had been a long time since anyone had claimed to enjoy his company. Even when they had, Keith considered that those claims might have been less sincere than he'd suspected.

Pidge was sincere. It was impossible to consider otherwise when he continued to talk to Keith so much of his own volition. Keith didn't have to pretend with Pidge, nor with any of the paladins. They seemed to simply like him just how he was.

"Okay," Keith said and, nodding, he pushed himself from the back of Hunk's couch. "I'm going to go and have a shower in a second, though. Are you staying this morning?"

"Depends. Are you kicking me out?" Hunk called after him as Keith made his way towards the bedroom he'd lived in for months. "If I'm not welcome, I'll take off."

"I didn't say that," Keith said with a glance over his shoulder. He paused in step. "Why would I want you to leave? Besides, it would hardly be my place to tell you to, even if I did for some reason want you out."

Hunk's smile, upside down as he tilted his head to follow Keith's passage down the hallway, flashed once more. "Thanks, man. Though it's your apartment too, you know." At Keith's non-committal reply, he hummed a little objectionably but didn't comment further but to say, "I think Allura and Shiro were leaving in a little bit."

"For work?"

"Yeah. Shiro's dropping her off or something. If he's actually okay to drive, that is."

Keith nodded and turned towards his room once more. He spared a moment to grab a towel as he typed a quick message through Voltron to Pidge before heading towards the bathroom, only to pause outside of Shiro's room and knock tentatively on the door. Shiro had said that he could come into his room whenever he wanted but… Keith had never liked it when others intruded upon his space. It didn't seem right.

"Are you guys awake?" he said softly.

"You're back, Keith?" Shiro's muffled voice sounded through the wood.

"Oh, good," Allura said a moment later. "I was hoping to say goodbye to you properly before I left. Come in, Keith."

Shiro and Allura had a strange relationship. According to Hunk they were practically dating, but Keith didn't think so. They'd never made any profound displays of such with one another, and though they were clearly close he didn't think it was _that_ kind of close. Keith might have considered that it was simply his obliviousness to such situations that made it unreadable, but Pidge was uncertain too. Lance as well, though he sat more from the perspective that Shiro and Allura weren't together _yet_ , if they were ever going to be. That they hadn't taken that step.

Keith was inclined to agree, even if they did seem to spend an undue amount of time together. He didn't think that either of them were the kind of people to keep such a thing from their friends.

When Keith opened the door to peer inside, it was to see nothing to suggest otherwise. Shiro and Allura were standing in the middle of the room, both properly dressed for the day with Allura in the casual pantsuit of a style he'd seen her wearing countless times to the university she worked. Her hair, the paleness as striking against her skin as always, was pinned in a pile atop her head and she was leaning towards Shiro as she peered at his arm.

His right arm. His prosthetic. It was coming up to eight months since Shiro had been outfitted, and Keith considered that he was nothing if not a competent with using it. He seemed to have accommodated the replacement for his real arm with remarkable ease, and the way he moved the mechanical fingers was a little surreal to watch at times.

It was an expensive piece of technology, to say the least. Shiro hadn't expressly requested as much, but when Allura climbed on board he didn't have much of a choice. Shiro likely wouldn't have even chosen to take that next step in his rehabilitation if it wasn't for Allura, but Allura hadn't stopped there. She wanted the best for him, for Shiro to have as close to what he'd lost as was possible.

Allura was like that. She seemed to want – and actively seek to gain – the best for all of her paladins. Keith had never met anyone quite like her before.

He'd never met anyone quite like Shiro before either, for that matter. Shiro was, in Keith's opinion, something of an ideal that Keith could only aspire to be. If only Shiro could see it for himself. Keith suspected he still wasn't quite comfortable with his arm, and not because he couldn't use it adeptly. He seemed to struggle with feelings of guilt over possessing it at all, as though he weren't worthy of it.

Keith had never met a person worthier in his life. If only Shiro could see that, too.

They both glanced towards the door as Keith poked his head inside, and identical smiles spread warmly across their faces. Both had recovered substantially from their respective hospitalisations since Keith had first met them. Allura especially; she was no longer the skeletally thin, pale, almost frail woman she had been but instead seemed to glow just a little with vibrancy. Few would likely be able to guess she had been in invasive surgery less than a year before. Keith agreed with Lance's assessment that she was somewhat angelic, even if she did demonstrate savage sort of wit at times.

"Good morning," she said, fluttering a hand at him. "I'm glad I could see you before I left."

"Good run?" Shiro asked.

Keith shrugged. "It's nice enough, I suppose. It's not raining at least."

"Looks like another beautiful day," Allura said enthusiastically, casting a brief glance towards the single, wide window on the wall opposing the door and the sprawling view beyond. Shiro's room held little more than a bed, a nightstand and the doors of an in-built closet, but the portrait-like expanse of the window more than made up for its sparseness.

Allura's words struck Keith just slightly. It reminded him of her morning welcomes of the past, how she used to exclaim with just that enthusiasm on the original Voltron as a kind of greeting every day. It drew a slight smile to Keith's lips that redoubled Allura's own when she drew her attention back towards him.

"You're headed off to work?" he asked. At her nod, he spared a glance for Shiro. "Did you want me to drive with you, or…?"

"Thanks, Keith," Shiro said, his own smile softening slightly. He dropped his gaze down to his right arm contemplatively. "I appreciate the offer. That might be a good thing given that I'm –"

"Perfectly capable of driving yourself, actually," Allura interrupted him brightly. She all but ignored the pointed glance Shiro shot her. "Thank you, Keith, but that's alright. Besides, I checked on Voltron – Lance is on his way over, isn't he? I don't think it's too great an assumption to consider you're the primary person he's coming to see."

"I think he'd probably want to see everyone, actually," Keith said, pressing his phone idly between his hands. It was still buzzing intermittently with messages from Pidge and Lance, and likely Hunk as well who'd undoubtedly joined them again. "He'll be disappointed you're gone before he's arrived."

"Ah, well, perhaps he can come to the Castle on Saturday?" Allura said, referring to her old home Altea as the paladins did. She'd at first found it amusing to consider her home any kind of castle, but that amusement had faded into acceptance readily enough. "You'll come, won't you, Keith?"

"Of course. It's not like I have anything else to be doing."

"Wonderful," Allura said, beaming. Then her smile dimmed slightly. "Lance is coming over then, is he?"

Keith nodded. "You just said he was."

"I know, but…" She paused for a moment and a slight frown settled on her brow. "Are you going to talk to him, Keith?"

It was a struggle. For a moment, it was a sincere struggle to avoid retreating behind a coldly blank façade, from telling Allura that it was none of her business and that it didn't concern her. That was how Keith would have dealt with the situation in the past because, in the past, it _hadn't_ been anyone else's business.

But looking at Allura, at Shiro, at their open, concerned faces that tried very hard not to appear so, Keith couldn't snap at them. He couldn't even turn on his heel and leave. This was different to how it had been in the past. The paladins, his friends of Voltron – they were different. They did care, and it _was_ their business, because Voltron business concerned them all.

Keith had told Shiro of his intentions. Allura had simply found out because she was eerily perceptive at times and wouldn't stop prodding at Keith until he told her what was 'bugging' him. Keith didn't want to keep it a secret, exactly, but he was still thinking. Not about his commitment but about how to tell Lance. Pidge and Hunk too, but mostly Lance.

He wasn't sure Lance would take it well at all.

Slowly, Keith nodded. He bit back the urge to sigh. "Yes. I'll probably tell him."

"Would you like me to talk to him about it?" Shiro offered. "Maybe if it was someone else who broached the subject…?"

"No," Keith said with a shake of his head. "Really, it's okay." In the past he wouldn't have admitted even this much but, "I'm just working myself up to it. I don't know how he'll take it so…" He trailed off awkwardly. That was about as open as Keith felt he could be.

Shiro and Allura nodded synchronously, twin expressions of sympathy touching their faces. "If you'd prefer then alright," Shiro said, and was followed a moment later by Allura's murmured, "You'll let us know if we can help at all, won't you?"

Keith nodded, if a little awkwardly again, before with a brief word of farewell he took himself from the room and to the bathroom. Another moment to respond to Pidge's written words that he'd in turn said in reply to Keith's – and to skim briefly through the explosion of exchanges between the three of his other friends – and he was climbing into the shower to lose himself in a rush of steaming water and the deafening thunder of a high-pressure showerhead.

When he climbed out, he wasn't alone.

"Forgive the intrusion, though I'd hardly consider myself a peeping tom. I hope you don't mind."

Sitting on the closed lid of the toilet in what was already only a modest bathroom, Lance filled the breadth of white-tiled walls and slick floors with his presence. His smile stretched widely but there was nothing leering in the way he looked at Keith as he stood dripping on the shower mat. Regardless of how he claimed he was an unshakeable flirt, Lance wasn't crude. He didn't objectify. That simply wasn't him.

Keith scooped his towel up from where it lay on the faucet and raised an eyebrow at Lance's pout when he wrapped it around his waist. "I know I should be surprised to see you in here, but…"

"It's not the first time?" Lance's pout became a smirk as he lounged back on the toilet lid and stretched his legs before him. "That was only once."

"I'm still not surprised."

"And not objecting, I notice."

"I've hardly got anything to hide."

"Look at you, all blunt and without embarrassment. See how far you've come."

Keith rolled his eyes, but he couldn't withhold the smile that grew upon his lips. That was true. It was very true. Keith didn't think he'd ever been a bashful person, but before he'd begun dating Lance he'd been far from familiar with the soft caresses and not-so-soft touches that grew from disconcertingly strange to truly pleasant. That had changed, at least. Keith might not be comfortable with just anyone slinging an arm across his shoulders or touching his hand, but Lance was an exception.

More than an exception, Lance was special. In the time Keith had come to know him, he'd deduced that much, at least.

Crossing the misted bathroom with slow steps to avoid a slipping catastrophe that had been their first bathroom encounter, Keith planted himself in front of Lance. Lance gazed up at him expectantly, eyebrow raised in almost a taunt and yet the softness of his smile erasing anything of the kind.

"Are you complaining about my bluntness again?" Keith said, raising his hands to rest upon Lance's shoulders. Even that gesture would have been far too intimate for Keith in the past. Not anymore. Now, the simple contact was… nice.

Lance's smile widened. "Do I sound like I'm complaining?"

"A little bit."

"You're kidding. I thought I told you I loved it."

 _Loved it_. Keith wasn't the kind of person to throw such a word around. It didn't mean anything to him, not really, and though on a detached level he might consider that what he did feel for his fellow paladins was love, he didn't think he quite understood it. Not for another person. Not like that.

Even so, when Lance said the words even offhandedly, Keith felt warm. His fingers curled unconsciously upon Lance's shoulders and a soft thump hitched in his chest. "I guess that's a good thing then. I didn't really have any intention of changing."

In many ways, Keith thought Lance was a beautiful person. More than attractive – _beautiful._ It was in his smile, in the softness his words could become, in the way his incessantly animated eyebrows would cease their taunting dances to ease into a similar softness and his eyes would train upon Keith with a steady blueness that Keith hadn't noticed until he'd deliberately met that gaze for the first time months before.

It was how Lance wrapped his arms around Keith's waist in a way that wasn't quite suggestive but drew him closer towards him nonetheless. It was the way he murmured an almost indiscernible, "Perfectly fine by me" and simply accepted the weight of Keith's hand as he raised it to the back of Lance's head.

Keith folding himself over him and curled around him until he was close enough to kiss. The press of warm lips and heated breath was erased the sticky discomfort of the shower mist that still clogged the air, the glorious feeling of smooth skin and thick hair beneath Keith's hands only enhanced by the dampness of his fingers. Keith would never had suspected that touching someone in such a way, kissing them and yes, even opening up to them just a little, could be so satisfying. Could feel so right. Could be so…

Perfect.

Lance met him kiss for kiss, short and chaste at first but rapidly deteriorating into something far more and far deeper. He drew Keith towards him with gentle tugs of his arms and Keith was more than happy to oblige, to all but fall on top of him as Lance drew closer in a simple attempt to erase the distance between them. It didn't matter that Keith was still wet from the shower, his skin still bare and speckled with droplets of water. It didn't matter in turn that Lance was dressed in _far_ too many layers in Keith's opinion. He was more than happy to relieve him of it when Lance mumbled a suggestion of the kind into his lips.

Hands grazed skin, slipping across bared skin and beneath shirts in turn, and Keith would have been content to remain in the little bathroom with Lance for the rest of the morning, simply bowed over him and losing himself in the softness of lips that pressed incessantly against his own, again and again. He likely would have, too, had Lance not pulled away briefly with a smile touching his lips and peered up at him with open affection.

"I missed you yesterday, Red," he said before dropping his lips to Keith's shoulder and following it with a succession of similar touches. "Maybe you should just move in with me. I don't think mamá and papá would mind." He hummed contentedly, as though such a thought was nothing if not appealing.

It gave Keith pause, however. Slumped as he was, arms wrapped around Lance's neck as they were, he paused with his lips not quite touching the side of Lance's forehead. Talk like that always got Keith thinking. Maybe Lance spoke offhandedly, without any real investment, but it always got Keith to thinking of the future. Of what that future would mean for them.

It got Keith thinking of what Allura and Shiro both had been urging him towards that morning, and several mornings before.

Drawing away from Lance slightly, even if he couldn't quite bring himself to unwrap his arms, Keith peered down at him. Lance drew his gaze upward curiously, eyebrow quirking slightly. "What's wrong?" he asked, before turning his head to kiss Keith's arm.

Keith chewed his lip for a moment before catching himself. "I've got to talk to you about something."

Lance paused with his lips still upon Keith's skin and spared him a sideways glance. A questioning light that wasn't quite guarded grew in his eyes. "That sounds ominous."

"It's nothing bad," Keith muttered. _Or at least I hope not._

"What is it, then?"

Keith drew away just a little further, straightening. "Maybe not in the bathroom?"

Lance smirked. "You have a problem with the bathroom?"

"I have a problem being wet and dressed only in a towel."

"I don't see that as a problem at all," Lance replied. He still didn't seem inclined to drop his arms from Keith's waist, and Keith couldn't find a single part of himself complaining for that fact. "Would it make you feel better if I was too?"

Keith snorted. "Then we'd just be going backwards."

"I don't see that as a problem either, actually."

Shaking his head, Keith stepped backwards and, dropping his hands to Lance's, dragged him after him. They slipped through the door with a glance down the hallway to where Hunk was still lying obliviously upon the couch and hastened into Keith's room.

Lance collapsed onto Keith's bed as soon as they entered and seemed quite content to simply observe as Keith pulled jeans and t-shirt out of his closet. His distance and observation didn't last long, however, and Keith didn't think that another pair of hands was exactly the most conducive way to hasten the dressing experience.

Not that haste was particularly an issue. Keith was more than happy to drag his own hands beneath Lance's clothes to graze along his back, pulling him towards him for the simply rush of contact. He certainly wasn't complaining this time either.

How they ended up on the floor was another matter entirely, but Keith didn't really care. It was with a struggle, remaining in a mess of tangled limbs and barely upright, that he recalled himself enough to remember why he'd urged them from the bathroom in the first place.

Lance responded to the wordless request to cease their groping exchange without comment. He was always like that. Keith had almost been surprised at first by how ready Lance was to simply stop when Keith didn't want to go further, when the touch of hands and the incessant demand of lips grew less intoxicating and more discomforting. That discomfort admittedly hadn't shown itself for quite some time, but it was heartening to know the option remained.

Instead, when Keith silently requested a pause, Lance settled himself to idly playing with his hair instead. Keith suspected it had much to do with working at his father's shop, but for whatever reason, Lance had always had an interest in Keith's hair.

"You still have to let me cut it one of these days," Lance murmured, tugging on the damp ends with gentle fingers.

"What's wrong with it being long?"

"Nothing. I just want to try cutting it."

Keith didn't mind. He really didn't mind all that much, and didn't even know why he hadn't let Lance do so already. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he'd grown to quite like the casual tugs of Lance's fingers on the ends of Keith's hair.

Shrugging, Keith dropped his gaze down to where his own fingers played with idly with the Lance's free hand. "Might not get the opportunity to," he found himself saying, mind drawn to the army. There was a policy about hair length, Keith knew. He'd considered just about everything.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," Keith said.

"No, what was it?" Lance shifted slightly around him. Or beneath, over, Keith wasn't so sure; it was a little hard to tell when he wasn't looking directly and Lance took to fidgeting. "Is this what you wanted to talk about? Because if you're going to get your hair cut, I'd be insulted if you went somewhere other than my papá's shop."

Keith couldn't help but laugh at that, even if it was somewhat strained. That Lance could think he wanted to discuss something as trivial as a haircut when the reality loomed so much larger and potentially deadly… it set a nauseous feeling in Keith's gut. Keith wasn't used to feeling nervous, but he'd begun to suspect that nervousness was what that feeling was.

With a struggle, he lift his chin, fighting to raise his gaze to meet Lance's. Keith had never had much of a problem with meeting someone's eyes either, and Lance had told him more than once that the way he stared so unblinkingly was a little unnerving at times. "But don't stop it," he always said, as if he actually expected Keith to. "Don't stop looking at me." Then he'd grin widely as though amused at his own words.

Keith wouldn't look away. He'd never look away if he didn't have to. When they were in the privacy of only one another's company, everything seemed softer. Warmer. Easier and infinitely more intimate. Keith loved the rest of Voltron's paladins, but spending time with Lance was different all over again.

 _I don't want to lose this_ , he thought as he had countless times before, and yet even as the thought arose he knew he'd still stand by his decision. He'd still step forwards in the direction he'd chosen.

Shaking his head, Keith couldn't quite manage to maintain his smile. He watched as Lance's smile died alongside his own to be replaced with a frown. "No, it's not that," Keith said. "It's not a haircut."

"Then…" Lance trailed off expectantly. His gaze was focused, even his fingers pausing in their absent tugging. "What?"

Keith took a slow breath. He stared into Lance's eyes because he couldn't – he _wouldn't_ – look away. "I just wanted to let you know. I'm going to join the army."

Silence met his words. For a moment, Keith wondered if he'd actually spoken aloud at all. Lance's expression didn't change, seemed almost to be cast in stone for its utter immobility. Until it did change, and Keith wished it hadn't at all.

His eyes slowly widened. His lips parted and jaw dropped just slightly. Even a touch of paleness sapped the colour from his cheeks as the fingers still curled in Keith's hair tightened until they almost clung. Those clasped between Keith's hands horribly, most horribly, for a brief second actually trembled.

"That's sarcasm, right?" Lance said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Please. Tell me you're being sarcastic. I still can't tell sometimes and I'm…"

Keith couldn't say anything. At that moment, everything seemed to have taken a turn, changing all over again. This time, it wasn't such a good one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Don't forget to check out the next chapter again! Sorry for the confusion the previous one caused; I hope it makes at least a little more sense now.


	4. Red

_Two._

_One_.

"Moving out."

_Keith was on his feet and flying down the hill as soon as the second ticked over in his head. He didn't need to glance around himself to ascertain whether his comrades were similarly on the move. They would be, he knew. Besides, he likely wouldn't have been able to see them if he'd bothered to look._

_Each step was carefully trodden, yet remained upon the ground for barely a second before launching free once more. Keith was fast and he knew it. It was as much his mission to be the first into the town, the first on the scene, the first to eliminate a threat, as it was Pidge's to relay directions, or Lance to snipe any flicker of movement he saw before Keith confronted it. Within seconds, slipping down the decline of loose rocks and meagre sprouts of vegetation, he was darting across the brief, open stretch of evening gloom and into the shade of the nearest building._

_For barely a moment, Keith pressed his back against hard wall and dropped to a ready crouch. The buildings were small, squat, some little more than lean-tos and with windows draped in rags more than curtains. A minimalistic town, small of populace and on the cusp of poverty. In many ways, it only made the situation that much worse. Keith knew Shiro thought so. He recognised the expression on Shiro's face from the moment the town had come into view._

_Shiro was angry. Not like the anger that Keith could become sometimes, but angry nonetheless. Keith, as with every one of the rest of the paladins, felt the unshakeable urge to relieve that anger almost as much as he did to help the clutch of people trapped in the town._

_For two breaths Keith paused with his back against the wall. Two breaths, short inhalations, as he strained his ears for the faintest sounds of movement. There would be something. Surely something. Hunk had been the one to spot the motion and Lance would keep his eye out for approaching threats from his perch. The Mothership would also keep her eye firmly affixed._

_Not that Keith should rely upon that. He had a team, but foremost he was supposed to manage for himself. A team was only as strong as their weakest member, and Keith wouldn't hold his paladins back._

_No sound reached his ears so Keith sprung from the wall onto silence feet once more and made a darting sprint down the first narrow road he happened across. He barely considered the assault rifle slung over his shoulder and made no move to sling it free, to hold it at the ready for an attack. Keith was a combat specialist, but assault rifles? That was Lance's area of expertise, not his_

_He made it nearly to the town centre. Down streets, glimpsing not a soul and slinking at flying speed between the shadows of the silent buildings that could have been empty for all Keith knew. He hoped they were. He hoped the message had reached the town in time for most to evacuate. There were some hostages – of course there were, for why else would his team be assigned the mission? – but Shiro had voiced his hopes that there would be few._

_It was nearly at the town centre that he was set upon. Rounding a corner, instinct more than deliberate thought had Keith ducking, dropping to the ground onto his shoulder in a roll and dodging beneath the violent swing of a heavy rifle. He didn't spare a second for thought before he was flying into action, for the enemy had weapons. They had guns. There wasn't time to think._

_Keith leapt to his feet and swiped the rifle from his opponent's hands. He spun with a flurry of movement, drawing his combat knives and swiping at the figure that he detachedly recognised as a man before sidestepping and springing in close. A knee to the gut, twisting aside, heel to the side of his opponent's knee, then he smacked the butt of his knife hilt into the man's head._

_The man toppled in an instant._

_Keith had barely a second to straighten before another was upon him. He dodged, ducked, parried with his knives as much as his fists, and in another second his opponent stumbled to the ground. Then another appeared from around a building. He was on his back, Keith battling him for a moment before another smack to the head knocked him from his senses. No emotion. No reaction and barely thought except for –_

_Three? Just three? Definitely not._

_Keith didn't get the chance to glance around himself for evidence of more attackers. He'd barely climbed from his opponent's felled body before the first sound of gunshots dropped him to the ground once more in a dive. A crack, a snap, a hollow echo, again and again. Keith rolled to the nearest cover. He pressed his back against the wall and tucked to minimise surface area as much as possible._

_Keith wasn't scared. He rarely got scared anymore, even if his body still felt it. The rapid thumping in his chest, the instinctive tightening of his fingers around his knives, the dribble of sweat down his spine – he felt it but he didn't_ feel _it. Keith didn't let himself, even when the deafening crack of gunshots tore down the street._

_In a flurry of movement, barely pausing to ascertain the direction the gunfire was raining from – not friendly; definitely not – Keith sprung to his feet once more. He launched himself to the nearest alley from the main strip of narrow road in a lunge. His boots crunched briefly on the dusty road, a puff of cloud rising in his wake before he was diving once more into shelter. The crack of shots chased him but, in his relative safety, Keith barely considered them._

_One._

_Two._

_Three then –_

_Four._

_Another series of thundering bursts. Must have been from an automatic rifle. Keith catalogued them in his head, ordering the facts his eyes had absorbed but, fighting, he hadn't registered. His opponent's gear had been worn but sturdy, of quality make. The heavy rifle that had nearly taken his head off like a baton was scarred but of modern make. A machine gun? Really? The man clearly hadn't known how to use it if he'd attempted to swing it like a blunt weapon rather than fire it. Or maybe he hadn't been expecting to see Keith quite so soon._

_"They're armed, and well enough," Keith muttered into his headpiece. He sunk further onto his haunches, all but ignoring the shots thrumming along the road alongside him. There was return fire, Keith noted detachedly. Of course there was. They surely wouldn't be continuing their aimless shots otherwise. "Bastard just tried to take me out with a submachine gun to the head."_

"Are you injured?" _Shiro asked, his tone clipped and just slightly strained. It was barely audible over the sound of gunfire in Keith's ear, but not for distortion of the earpiece._

_"Negative. Idiot didn't even pull the trigger. I doubt he knows how to use a gun."_

"Well, that's a positive for us," _Pidge said, her own voice nearly as muffled as Shiro's._ "Stupid enemies are always the best."

"I wouldn't be so fast to claim they're stupid," _Hunk said._

"I didn't say they were. I just insinuated it would be to our benefit."

_"Is that Sharpshooter?" Keith asked, ignoring the exchange. Even in the midst of open fire they always somehow managed to speak with remarkable calm. "Or is it you, BlackLion?"_

"I love how he doesn't even ask if it's me," _Pidge muttered._

_"You have your talents," Keith replied. "Shooting isn't one of them."_

"And neither is it yours."

_"No. It isn't."_

"I'm making my way towards you," _Shiro said. Keith thought he could even hear the echo of shots through his headpiece. He peered along the alley once more in the direction he'd come as Shiro continued._ "We'll converge. Meet at six o'clock."

_"The two-storey? Slated roof?"_

"That's the one."

"Already on my way," _Hunk said, a puff through his headpiece suggesting his movement as much as his words._ "And yes, I do believe that is Sharpshooter."

"Holding them off all by himself, is he?" _Pidge asked._ "At 'em, Sharpshooter."

"You know it," _Lance murmured, and there was very definite distraction to his tone. Keith wondered that he even bothered to reply at all. But then, Lance was never one to pass up a discussion._

_Keith found himself smiling thinly. Lance was their prime shooter and he knew it, but was surprisingly sparse with his arrogance in that regard. Strange, how he was so little when it was deserved. Rising to his feet yet maintaining his half crouch of readiness, Keith skirted towards the opposite end of the alley. "Don't die, Sharpshooter."_

"Who do you take me for?" _Lance replied shortly._ "I've got this."

_Keith trusted him. He trusted Lance with that much at least, even if it always niggled at him with distinctly more concern than it should when he became so aggressively involved. But he couldn't think like that. Not about Lance. Keith had to force his worries aside when they had a mission to complete._

_Even so, when Keith sprung from the alley, it wasn't quite in the direction Shiro had pointed him. They did have a mission, but that didn't mean they'd be mindlessly foolish along the way. Keith had his missions too._


	5. Lance

_Voltron: Year One, Month 10/12 of rebirth_

_Paladin of Operation: Sharpshooter18_

* * *

The changes that befell Lance's life hadn't struck him in a single blow. They were incremental, like steps that gradually rose to the landing of change. And they started with his graduation. With his slipping into working at his papá's shop on a regular basis.

Then with the death of Hunk's mother.

Then with Keith…

Lance didn't know how to deal with any of it. He accepted his graduation from a school student with the joviality of his schoolmates. They were free. They were adults. They could go, live their lives, _be._ Lance empathised and added his own wistful excitement to the midst of their conversations.

Except that he didn't go. He didn't live his life as something apart from what it had been. He took up residence at his papá's shop and for a time it seemed to work. Lance didn't think that he should expect anything further and he didn't want to. Not really. Not when he saw the effect his helping hands offered at the barbershop. If it helped just a little bit, eased the burden on his papá's shoulders even slightly and made it a little easier for the weighty expenses of their household, he would do it.

And it did seem to help. It seemed to help quite a lot, and was something that Lance's parents never failed to tell him time and time again. Lance was happy for that. He didn't want anything else, so long as he could help his family. He couldn't let himself want anything else.

Then Hunk's mom had died.

It was a different kind of change to Lance's graduation. There was none of the joy of his classmates, the faux-joy that Lance adopted because he didn't know how else he was expected to be, the wealth of exciting possibilities that opened up. It was different and it was horrible. For Hunk, for Lance's _best friend_ Hunk, it was as though the world was torn apart.

Every spare day Lance had he spent with Hunk. Or at least whenever Hunk wanted his company. Which he did most of the time. Hunk seemed at a loss; he still worked at the Balmeran Bakehouse, still saw his gran every day, but he didn't seem to know what else to do. What to be. He was drifting.

It hurt Lance to see his friend in such a way. He was more than happy to request his papá reserve a permanent seat for Hunk at the shop for the occasions he dropped by. Hunk seemed to appreciate the gesture and filled the seat on frequent occasion. That was a change to the barbershop that was entirely unexpected for everyone involved. Lance was just grateful that his papá didn't mind. Lance had commitments to his family, to the shop, but Hunk…

For a good few weeks there, Lance had wondered if Hunk had wanted to be alright at all. He wondered if Hunk _wanted_ himself to feel better. His world really did seem to be torn apart.

But then after that, _more_ than that, because the changes didn't stop there, there was Keith. Lance was always thinking about Keith these days.

Sprinting across the grass, Lance's eyes narrowed as he honed in and swiped a brutal kick to the ball. The strike sent it whizzing like a gunshot towards the goals. It had been a bad shot, Lance knew, but he didn't care. Or he didn't until it smacked the goalie right in the head and sent him tumbling to the ground.

The sight of it drew Lance from his thoughts and he flinched before hastening across the distance between himself and the goals. He was on his knees before the goalie Mitch, cringing as his teammates and opponents called across the field. Surprise, sympathy, even a touch of reprimand, flooded the calls of "Are you alright?" and "Lance, what the fuck?"

"Shit, Mitch, I'm really sorry," Lance said, holding out a hand as Mitch pushed himself up to sitting. "I don't even know what I was thinking." Which was a lie, but it sounded good on paper.

Mitch rubbed a hand to his head, blinking in what seemed his own surprise more than pain, before waving Lance's apology and hand aside. He clambered to his feet and Lance rose alongside him. "It's okay. It's all good. I'm good, I –" He paused, blinked once more, then cocked his head as he squinted at Lance. "You alright, man?"

Was Lance alright?

He'd graduated from school and all but left his schoolmates as they flooded in their own directions.

He'd fallen into the job that he'd known he was always going to have, to support his family, to help his papá, but that when Lance let himself admit it he knew he didn't want.

One of his best friends had lost his mom, had been a broken, pained mess for weeks, and only now seemed to be attempting to climb out of that mess.

And his boyfriend. Keith was enlisting in the army and he was leaving Lance behind. He was going somewhere that Lance couldn't follow, and it was perhaps the most painful thing Lance had ever experienced.

Was Lance alright? When he thought about it, when he _let_ himself think about it, Lance didn't think he was. Not at all.

But he only smiled an apologetic smile and shook his head at Mitch's frown. Lucidity seemed to be settling upon the goalie once more as he regained his senses. "I'm fine," he said. "Sorry. Just a little bit distracted. It won't happen again, I promise."

Mitch didn't question further and Lance didn't expect him to. The Saturday morning soccer matches that Lance still strove to attend whenever he could weren't a therapy session. Or at least they weren't therapy of the speaking kind, though Lance often found them therapeutic. They came together to play soccer where they couldn't anywhere else, and that was exactly what Lance intended to do.

It was what he did as he jogged back from Mitch's side to the halfway line. Calls of his teammates of, "Get your head in the game, yeah, Lance?" and "Off with the fairies, were you?" rebounded off him, but he ignored them. It was all spoken in good humour, for a wayward kick was hardly unheard of. It wasn't even uncommon, except that it was Lance who had done it.

He wasn't called Sharpshooter for nothing, after all.

They played for longer than a game should realistically last. All of them would play until their commitments and responsibilities drew them elsewhere. Only as their numbers began to dwindle, when Lance and barely four other players remained, did they finally call it to a day. Sweat lathered Lance's brow, clinging his shirt to his skin despite the chill of encroaching winter pervading the air. It wasn't snowing yet, and Lance was grateful for that. It was harder to play on the weekends when their makeshift field was smothered by further impediments.

Lance raised a hand to his remaining teammates and opponents as he turned to leave. "I'll see you guys next week?"

Calls of agreement sounded in his wake, unintelligible but for their consensus, and Lance turned to jog from the field. It wasn't a far walk to his home, but that hardly mattered. He didn't have any intention of heading home anyway. It was his first day wholly off in… Lance didn't even know how long.

Instead, he headed towards the nearest bus stop. Pulling his phone out of his pocket as he walked, Lance clicked it open and instinctively logged onto Voltron. It really was instinctive these days; Voltron had become what Lance primarily used his phone for anyway.

Activity had run rampant in his absence. It was always that way, and had only grown more so since he, Keith and Hunk had graduated from school. Hunk's absence told Lance he was still sleeping off his shift of that morning, but their exclusive chatroom was hardly quiet without him. Strolling down the sidewalk alongside the constant hum of cars, Lance sniffed away the settling chill as he flicked through the messages.

_PrincessOfAltea: But that's a good thing, isn't it? That's what you wanted?_

_BlackLion007: Yes. I suppose._

_Red: That doesn't sound particularly confident._

_DiffWizard: Thank you for so bluntly pointing that out to us, Red. I wouldn't have been able to see it otherwise._

_Red: Are you in a bad mood?_

_DiffWizard: Maybe._

_DiffWizard: Sorry. Just my mom being you know._

_Red: Your typical mom._

_DiffWizard: Yeah_

_DiffWizard: Just some of the stuff she was saying this morning_

_DiffWizard: It's not important. Sorry, I'm distracting from the conversation._

_PrincessOfAltea: Is something wrong, DiffWizard? Are you alright?_

_BlackLion007: Please tell us. Is there a way we could help?_

Lance found himself smiling despite himself. He hadn't felt much inclined towards such smiles of late, but the incessant support of his friends would always lift his spirits. Lance felt a physical ache in his chest whenever he saw Keith's vivid red script, but even that didn't fully smother the warmth in his chest.

It didn't help that, even frustrated with Keith as he was, Lance could never truly be angry with him.

_DiffWizard: No, seriously guys_

_DiffWizard: I'm fine. Just the usual._

_DiffWizard: You go, BlackLion. Come on, I want to hear what's going on. What did your captain say?_

Lance blinked. Captain? Lance had heard of Shiro's captain, the one he'd said had come to visit him several times throughout his rehabilitation. He'd been almost surprised by the commitment of the man, that he could spare the time for a single soldier when he commanded a company of over a hundred. Shiro had said it wasn't anything remarkable to show such compassion, even if he did appreciate the thought and effort. He said that the support of fellow officers and of those soldiers beneath his responsibility was something a captain simply did.

Hearing Shiro speak of it, Lance could understand why he was so committed to his duty. The camaraderie sounded… the way Shiro spoke reminded Lance of Voltron just a little bit.

_BlackLion007: It's nothing terribly exciting. Nothing final._

_DiffWizard: Now, I don't believe that._

_PrincessOfAltea: Yes, you do tend to play down the severity of things when they concern yourself, BlackLion._

_BlackLion007: Do I?_

_Red: Yes_

_DiffWizard: Definitely._

_PrincessOfAltea: I thought we'd discussed this before? Of course you do._

Lance couldn't help but agree. He would have been about an hour late in doing so, however.

_BlackLion007: Alright, then._

_BlackLion007: Howell came out to tell me that there was a position opening up in his company again. Off the record, you know, but he'd heard about me putting in my papers to return to active duty._

_DiffWizard: !_

_DiffWizard: Really?!_

_DiffWizard: That's fantastic!_

_PrincessOfAltea: Oh, that's wonderful, BlackLion. Will you accept it?_

_BlackLion007: It hasn't been offered to me, exactly, but if it was, maybe._

_Red: Do you want it? You sound reluctant._

_Red: You're allowed to want it, BlackLion._

Drawing towards the bus shelter, Lance paused, gaze still downcast as he read. As ever, he found himself nodding in agreement with Keith's words, and not only because he usually agreed with Keith despite the constant verbal banter he sought with him. It was an acknowledged fact that, when it came to Shiro's own actions, he didn't give himself enough credit. He didn't let himself want things, and especially what Lance knew – what all of the fellow paladins knew – he longed for so deeply. Shiro was a soldier. He likely always would be.

_PrincessOfAltea: Red's right, BlackLion. You're allowed to want it._

_DiffWizard: Go for it. You could at least express your interest, couldn't you?_

_BlackLion007: I could. Though I don't know if they'd take me._

_PrincessOfAltea: What would make you think they wouldn't?_

_BlackLion007: Well, my arm poses a problem._

_DiffWizard: Bullshit it does._

_Red: Agreed, DiffWizard._

_Red: There's nothing wrong with your arm that practice won't fix._

_BlackLion007: I understand. It's just a very long process._

_PrincessOfAltea: BlackLion, you've been almost perfectly mobile with your arm for months. There is by no means any reason for you to be restricted by it._

_BlackLion007: I know, I_

_BlackLion007: I'm sorry. I don't mean to complain. Thank you, everyone._

Lance scrolled through the lines of assurances that Shiro wasn't complaining, that he was entitled to if he wanted to, and the words that faded into a different discussion entirely. He watched as first Allura then Shiro signed out, leaving only Keith and Pidge in discussion, and he paused in his rapid scrolling. What he read made him wince. It was very pointed, or at least from Pidge's end.

_DiffWizard: He's still being a dick about it, then?_

_Red: No._

_Red: That's not it._

_DiffWizard: He's still avoiding you?_

_Red: I wouldn't say avoiding._

_DiffWizard: He's still not talking to you properly on Voltron?_

_Red: You ask that question despite knowing from what you've read._

_DiffWizard: He hasn't talked to you about enlisting yet, though? Even though it's clearly a bone between the both of you?_

_Red: We shouldn't talk about this here._

_DiffWizard: No, I think it would be good for him to hear it, actually._

_DiffWizard: You got that, Sharpshooter? Whenever you read this, okay – stop being such a dick._

The jump in conversation after that suggested that Keith had likely messaged Pidge privately to continue – or perhaps deflect – the conversation. But the damage was already done. Lance winced again and only distractedly noticed as the bus drew alongside him. He glanced up from his phone long enough to climb aboard before falling into the first seat he happened across and burying himself back into listless scrolling through his phone.

Pidge was right. He was entirely correct in his words at that moment. Lance knew he was being a dick, and he couldn't seem to stop himself. He couldn't talk to Keith about enlisting. He couldn't act as though everything was normal, because it wasn't. He couldn't even be happy for Keith, because…

Because he really, really liked him. And Keith was leaving him.

Absently scrolling through his phone, Lance noted detachedly that Pidge mentioned he was going to Hunk's house. Lance wasn't entirely sure if such was a good thing or not; he himself had intended to take himself there, as he often did on his days off. Or more so now that he was indeed avoiding Keith and hence Shiro's apartment, despite wanting nothing more than to go and see him.

But seeing Pidge was worrisome. It was surprising, perhaps, that such a small person could have so much strength of character. On the few occasions Lance had met Matt, Pidge's brother had spoken of how, when Pidge was younger, he'd been much quieter. Reserved, even. Then he'd grown a wicked tongue and an even more wicked wit, and everyone was at his mercy.

Such was life, Lance supposed.

Within two hours, Lance was slowing in step outside Hunk's house. It was almost as familiar to him in many ways as his own, and held countless fond memories from the past year. Or at least those from when he'd visited before Hunk had been weighted down with melancholy and grief. A small house seated a block back from the main road, it was simplistic, single-storey, and with a minimalistic front garden that was occasionally riddled with discarded rubbish from casual passers-by. Or at least that was what Hunk said, but Lance had seen him scrubbing slanderous graffiti from the walls once before earlier that year. He knew vaguely about Hunk's dad, though they never spoke of him. Hunk said the man and all he'd entailed was behind him.

The door was unlocked, which suggested that Pidge had already arrived. Lance let himself in and eased the door closed behind him. It was simple courtesy to maintain the stagnant quietude of the interior when Hunk was sleeping. Lance didn't need to be told to do so Hunk's gran Fae to abide by that rule. He all but crept down the hallway towards the living room.

Pidge was seated in the armchair. Of course he was, because not long into the paladins' acquaintance, at the time Pidge began escaping her own home for relief in Hunk's house as often as to Shiro's apartment or Allura's castle, he'd claimed it. Seated cross-legged, he'd actually brought his cumbersome computer with him, which was hardly surprising given it was Pidge. Pidge didn't go anywhere without his computer, and Lance wouldn't have been surprised if he had another one stashed in the rucksack propped against the foot of the chair.

"Hey," Lance asked by way of greeting. "DiffWizard, right?"

Pidge glanced up from his computer at his words, blinking in momentary surprise at Lance's arrival. Then he nodded, straightening slightly in his seat. "Yeah. I take it you read the messages from this morning, then?"

Crossing the room, Lance dropped into the couch alongside Pidge's with a sigh. "Yep."

"You look sweaty. Or is it raining outside?"

"No."

"Snow?"

"It's too early for snow. And no, I just played a game with the guys."

"Soccer?" Pidge pulled a face before dropping his gaze back to his computer. "Lovely."

Lance rocked his head onto the back of his chair before turning a smirk towards Pidge. "Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you have to drop shit on the best sport in the world."

"That there could even be a best sport…" Pidge muttered, likely more to himself than to Lance.

Smirk deepening, Lance raised an eyebrow. "You know, if you're going to live up to these dreams and aspirations you have, you're going to have to participate in some kind of physical activity at some point."

Pidge harrumphed, denying any bother of replying, and Lance knew he'd struck home.

It was no secret that Pidge wanted to join the army. Just like his brother, he always said. And just like Shiro too, who Pidge seemed to all but worship. He wanted to be a Comms Specialist, and Lance could entirely see it of him. Or at least he could with the exception the fact that Pidge had never seemed inclined towards physical activity in the slightest. He supposed that Pidge would have to change that over the next few years if he hoped to enlist at eighteen.

At the thought, Lance felt himself grow melancholic once more. It seemed that everyone around him was enlisting. Shiro was going to go back, because he would, if for no other reason than because Allura suggested it, and for whatever reason he always seemed to take Allura's suggestions to heart. Keith was, and he definitely would because he was more than capable of doing so, and Pidge too. It was a little painful to contemplate.

It wasn't that Lance didn't approve of the army. Far from it, in fact, he had developed something of his own sincere admiration for soldiers, perhaps a little idealising the notion and the process of so participating. It was something he couldn't help but develop. With someone like Shiro as his example, as a his role model, it would have been impossible not to consider such a life for himself.

But Lance would never be able to enlist. Not with his family as they were. But though he had once been so incredulous of Keith's words, of Pidge's own verbalised intentions and of Hunk's teasing suggestion once upon a time that even _he_ might consider it, Lance could understand. He could understand wanting that. He could understand…

Joining the army – in a way, it would be for the chance to be with his friends, as Lance had long decided he wanted to remain, but it was more than that. Lance wanted it a little bit for himself, too. He wanted that purpose, that camaraderie, the structure and the _meaning._ It was simply a shame that it couldn't ever happen.

"You're the one that brought it up."

At Pidge's words, Lance drew his attention from introspective towards him. "What?"

Pidge regarded him over the tops of his round glasses. "You. Just remember you're the one that brought up the subject. Now you have to deal with the consequences." Then he snapped his laptop closed with finality. He actually _closed_ his _laptop_. That was a big thing for Pidge.

Lance felt dread well within him without quite knowing why. It seemed entirely ominous. What was Pidge talking about? Just what had he gotten himself into?

Pidge sat forwards in his seat, propping his elbows onto his knees. He stared at Lance intently and Lance couldn't have looked away had he wanted to. Which he did. Abruptly, he very much did. For someone so small, Pidge could be oddly intimidating at times. "Now," he began, frankness lathering his tone. "Why the fuck are you avoiding Keith?"

Lance had known it was going to come, but for whatever reason he hadn't quite expected Pidge to speak so bluntly. Or more correctly, he hadn't expected him to speak _then_. It was a bit of a leap in subject material, he thought, considering what he'd supposedly 'brought up'. "What?"

"Keith," Pidge said. "You. Avoiding. Don't ask me why the hell I'm on clean-up duty, except for the fact that Keith's my friend too and you're being an ass."

Pidge and Keith. They were indeed friends in a weird kind of way, and something other than the simple friendship of the other paladins. They were both intelligent, book-smart in a way that Lance had never been even though his mamá always claimed that he was "far from stupid", and it seemed to be a point of bonding between the two of them. Maybe Lance really should have expected Pidge's approach. He'd always been fiercely defensive of his friends, of Matt, even of himself and his rights lately which was something that Allura never seemed to get enough of congratulating him for. Lance probably should have predicted Pidge would be the one to confront him about the Keith-situation.

But still… "It's nothing," he said. "Or actually, it's none of your business."

"It is, _actually_ ," Pidge said. "Because Keith's being all depressed about it."

"He is?"

Pidge nodded. Then he paused and shrugged. "At least as depressed as Keith gets. He's all broody."

Lance drew his gaze up to the ceiling, rocking his head back further. Keith was brooding? So he'd thought about their confrontation after his words too? Lance had replayed it in his head what felt like a thousand times in the past weeks.

_"So you mean you're…?"_

_"I'm going to join the army," Keith said, shifting slightly, maybe even a little awkwardly. Which was strange, because Keith was rarely awkward about anything. "As soon as possible, actually."_

_Lance stared at him, his good humour rapidly becoming smothered beneath a wave of horror. No. No, Keith couldn't be… he couldn't be going… "Why?"_

_"What do you mean why?"_

_"Why would you –? Why are you enlisting?"_

_Keith stared at Lance, confusion impressing a frown upon his forehead. "Because I want to."_

_"But… but what about…?" Lance couldn't quite force the words out. All of it. Keith was enlisting? He was leaving? When? Where was he going to go when he inevitably signed up? How long did they have? Keith was_ leaving him _? They'd even spoken idly of joining at some point, but Lance had always known it was an impossibility for him. Always. And yet apparently not for Keith._

_Lance couldn't ask any of that. He didn't either. Their conversation was cut short because Lance couldn't force any of his questions out. He left less than an hour after he'd arrived at the apartment in Long Island Beach._

"You ran away from him, didn't you?"

Lance glanced sidelong towards Pidge once more. He frowned. "How do you do that?"

Pidge arched an eyebrow. "Do what?"

"Guess so accurately."

"It's called deduction. And listening. I listen because Keith's been talking to me while you've been _in absentia._ "

Lance huffed, deliberately drawing his gaze upwards once more. The ceiling was nothing if not a boring slate of paleness but he stared as though an engrossing movie was projected across that blankness. "I didn't 'run away' from him. I just…"

"You've just been avoiding him."

"I'm not – I'm not avoiding him," Lance muttered. "We still see each other."

"Hardly at all, the way I hear it."

"The way you hear it?"

Lance caught Pidge's shrug from his periphery. "Keith and I have been hanging out a little bit more lately."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"Is that jealousy I'm detecting?"

"No, it's not."

"It is. You're jealous." Pidge snorted. "Idiot. He still wants to see you and talk to you. You're the one who's shutting him out. He's being compromised by it too, you know."

Lance couldn't help but glance towards Pidge once more. "Compromised? How do you mean?"

Pidge was frowning, lips thinned slightly. He looked truly indignant in that moment, as if he was personally offended. "Keith hasn't enlisted yet because of you."

Lance blinked, abruptly straightening in his seat. "What?"

"Yeah. You. He doesn't want to because you're mad at him."

"He's not going to enlist because of me?"

"I didn't say that," Pidge said, shaking his head. "He just hasn't enlisted _yet_. Not until you've worked your shit out."

"Worked my -?"

"Which you won't if you keep avoiding him," Pidge continued over him. "You know everyone's been talking on Voltron about it, right? To each other and everything. Just not you two."

Lance was indeed beginning to get that impression. He suspected that Keith had spoken to Shiro, for it was fairly apparent that Keith considered Shiro the go-to person for anything army related. Or for everything, actually, which Lance could understand. Shiro was an exceptionally wise person.

He hadn't known that Keith was talking to everyone else, however. Lance hadn't known that he'd spoken to them and aired quite as many of his concerns as Pidge suggested he had. He'd evidently come a long way from the Red he'd been when they'd first joined Voltron. That Red wouldn't have voiced a single word about himself, let alone his troubles.

Lance wished he could be happier Keith had, but in that moment he was simply saddened by the fact that he hadn't been a part of it. Lance studiously ignored the fact that he'd been excluded because of his own fault.

"You know, it's funny," Pidge said into Lance's silence. "I never saw you as the cowardly type."

Lance started, snapping his attention towards Pidge once more. "Cowardly?"

Pidge nodded, lips thinning further. "First you run away, then you won't even speak to him? Cowardice, Lance. That's cowardice."

"I'm not a coward," Lance growled, straightening further in his seat. "I'm just –"

"Just what?"

"I'm just _annoyed_."

"So you're solution is to avoid talking to Keith entirely and hope the situation fixes itself?"

"Why is it any of your business?" Lance all but snarled.

"I have no idea!" Pidge burst out. He threw his hands up in the air, slumping back into his armchair. "I have no idea why I'm getting myself involved in this mess. All I know is that even though you're my friend too, Lance, you're upsetting Keith and I'm not going to just sit here while you do it because Keith's not going to step forward and knock some sense into you. He seems to think you're something of a delicate flower in this instance –"

"I'm not a fucking delicate –"

" – which you're not," Pidge overrode him. "You're a coward who won't even talk to his boyfriend about something that _clearly_ needs to be talked about –"

"I'm not a coward!" Lance shouted. "I just don't want to get angry at him!"

Pidge stared at him through the sudden silence, his frown slowly growing less angry and more confused. "What?"

Lance barely heard him. He exhaled sharply, flinging a frustrated arm widely as if he could thrust aside his rising rage. It didn't help in the slightest. "I don't want to get angry at him. I don't want to shout at him for being an idiot and doing something dangerous _without me_. I don't want to pin him down and yell at him because how could he _do_ this to me? I don't want to have an argument because – because –"

He had to cut himself off. Lance smacked at the air beside him once more in frustration before bowing his head and folding his arms across his knees before him. That was the truth of it. It wasn't that he was running away because he didn't want a confrontation but because he feared what would result from one. That to argue in this instance would be different from their usual bantering exchanged and they might not recover from it.

Lance didn't want to be angry. He _was_ angry, but he didn't want to be. Keith didn't deserve that. He had every right to want to go into the army, and Lance should be supporting him, but he couldn't. He cared for Keith so damn much, and the thought of him undertaking in something dangerous without Lance alongside him was painful. More painful even than it was to consider Shiro or Pidge in a similar situation, because _Keith_ was different. Because Keith…

 _Because you really like him, idiot_ , a voice in the back of Lance's mind said. _And you don't want him to leave_.

A pathetic little mew sounded from Lance's throat but he barely had the presence of mind to be embarrassed by it. He swallowed tightly but it didn't seem to help relieve the weight settled in his throat. Pidge didn't speak and Lance couldn't bring himself to glance towards him to discern his response to Lance's outburst.

Not until Hunk spoke, anyway.

"So, you're scared he's leaving you, huh?"

Lance hadn't even noticed that Hunk was awake, let alone standing in the living room doorway. He felt a touch of guilt well within him as he turned towards Hunk's heavy-eyed, still slightly zombie-like countenance. His and Pidge's argument had indeed risen in volume, but it was more than that. Lance knew Hunk was a light sleeper. He'd always said he'd become as much because of his fear for his mom.

Lance swallowed tightly once more. "I'm not… I'm not _scared_ ," he managed, his voice wavering, but even to his own ears Lance knew he sounded unbelievable.

"Is it because of the army specifically?" Hunk asked, stumbling slightly as he stepped into the room and made his way to the cushion at Lance's other side. He lowered himself with a thump. "Or would you be upset if he left to go anywhere?"

Shifting slightly in his seat, abruptly awkward by the combined attention of both Pidge and Hunk, Lance shrugged. He bowed his head, eyes falling to his feet. "I don't know. I just don't like any of it."

"I thought you'd started to appreciate the army life a little more lately," Pidge said quietly. His own vehemence seemed to have diminished markedly.

"So what if I have? It doesn't mean I want Keith – or you or Shiro, for that matter – just up and leaving."

"We're talking about Keith now," Pidge said. "Not any of us other paladins."

"You're still relevant."

"Maybe." Pidge nodded. "But Shiro's practically already gone – you know he's going to accept his old captain's suggestion – and let's face it, I know I've basically been obsessed with the idea since Matt joined years ago. And Hunk is –"

Pidge abruptly cut himself off, but it was too late. Lance snapped his gaze towards him for a moment before swinging his attention instead to Hunk. Hunk regarded him a little sheepishly.

"What?" Lance asked, his voice barely a croak.

Hunk shrugged a heavy shoulder. His sidelong blinking might have been in an attempt to further awaken himself but Lance didn't think so. He looked decidedly uncomfortable. "I'm, um… yeah."

"You're what?"

"I'm," Hunk shifted noisily in his seat before sighing heavily. "Look, I wasn't going to say anything until you and Keith worked out your differences and everything, but it's true. I was going to sign up with him at the same time if I can get in. The Buddy Program, you know?"

Lance stared. He couldn't even bring himself to blink. This was… "What?"

Another awkward shift, and Hunk glanced towards Pidge as though seeking support. Not that Pidge offered any, which was entirely expected of him. Hunk sighed once more before finally continuing. "I've thought a lot, recently. About everything. About what I'm going to do with myself from hereon out."

"Not college," Lance murmured detachedly. He felt as though his whole world had been upturned once more. First Keith, and now Hunk? "You've been saying that you didn't want to go to college for a while, right?"

Hunk nodded. "I don't know why, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I mean, I loved school and everything –"

"God only knows why," Pidge muttered.

" – but I don't know, things have changed." Hunk barely spared Pidge a glance as he continued. "I guess, after everything that's happened, I just kind of want to get away. Or more," he heaved a third heavy sigh, "I need something else going on, you know? My m-mom, she was my whole life. It feels empty without her in it."

Hunk still stumbled speaking about his mom, but Lance didn't comment on the fact. He wouldn't, either. No one did these days. It would feel wrong to point out what even Hunk knew about himself.

Besides, Lance had more important things on his mind. Like the horror that rose within him that not only his boyfriend but also his best friend was leaving, and both for the army. Like the sadness of being left behind. Like the unjust envy of not having the opportunity of pursuing such a course himself when Lance realised with each passing moment of _not_ being able to that he truly wanted it. He did. He wanted it _so badly._ He dropped his chin once more, gaze falling downwards.

"I'm sorry," Hunk said. "It's bad timing to tell you, but I thought you should know."

"I guess everyone's been talking around me without me even realising it," Lance said, and he couldn't keep a touch of resentment from slipping into his tone.

"Sorry, Lance," Hunk said, his regret tangible.

"It's alright," Lance said, his voice catching slightly and giving him away. "I'm just…"

"Upset," Pidge provided bluntly. "Clearly. And understandably, given that all of your friends are thinking of joining the army and you're not."

"Thanks for that, Pidge," Lance grumbled. "Just lay it all out before me, why don't you?"

"I believe I just did."

"Well, thanks."

"You're welcome."

"Do you really hate the army so much?" Hunk asked. "Whenever we talk about it – or when we did before – you always seemed to think it was pretty impressive to."

Lance shrugged. It was true. At first, perhaps, when he'd just met Shiro, the prospect of joining the army was something that _other_ people did. It was admirable, true, but also just a little stupid, for who would do that to themselves? Who would want to stand in the line of fire for other people out of some misplaced sense of duty?

Except that had changed, because Lance had grown to realise that he might just be inclined to do just that. To stand in that place if he possibly could. To do something meaningful, that had purpose. And Hunk was right; he did think it was impressive. Lance, just as he knew Keith and suspected Hunk to have been, had grown to consider the army and its soldiers 'pretty impressive' indeed.

"Yeah," Lance said. "I do."

"You haven't thought about enlisting?" Pidge asked.

"Of course I have. How could I not have with Shiro as the ideal role model?"

"True."

"So why don't you?" Hunk said. "I mean, I know you've got a lot going on at home, but surely your parents would want you to do what you wanted to, right? That's what Allura always says and she tends to be right about everything. Besides, with all the rest of us hoping to enlist, it would be kind of cool, wouldn't it?"

"Joining just because all of my friends are isn't the right reason to do it," Lance said, deliberately overlooking Hunk's other words. Even to himself he sounded a little desperate, and not only because he knew his family's situation wouldn't allow for that. His friends enlisting might not be the only reason he would want to as well but it was certainly an appealing factor.

"Wouldn't it be?" Pidge said. "Besides, it's not the only reason, is it? Keith said you mentioned you'd like to anyway."

"Well, you and Keith are just best buddies at the moment, then, aren't you?"

"I'd like to think we've gotten close, yes."

"Just wonderful," Lance muttered.

"That's definitely jealousy this time," Pidge said a little triumphantly. "I can hear it."

"It's not," Lance began, then cut himself off. Who was he kidding? "So what if it is? I'm not allowed to be jealous that my boyfriends hanging out with my friends more than he is with me?"

"Technically we're just as much his friends as yours," Pidge said, raising a pointed finger.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with that," Hunk said. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to be with the person you love more than other people. Nothing wrong at all."

"And nothing wrong with being upset they might be leaving, either," Pidge said.

Lance was surprised by his words. Pidge was hardly a sentimental person, nor particularly emotionally invested in such situations. His words were almost gentle, however. Sympathetic. As though he truly was commiserating with Lance.

"Thank you?" Lance said, a little confused.

Pidge shrugged. "It's pretty obvious, to be honest. Maybe you can do me a solid and at least talk to Keith about it."

"Do you a solid?"

"It would really help me out. I'm having enough trouble dragging it out of Keith as it is. It's like pulling hen's teeth."

Lance couldn't quite suppress a grimly satisfied smile. "I thought you said he'd been opening up to you?"

Pidge pursed his lips slightly. "I may have been exaggerating a little to make a point. You're an idiot if you think he actually opens up to anyone but you, Lance."

Lance couldn't help but smile at that, and it was a real smile this time. Only to have his attention distracted by the heavy hand Hunk dropped upon his shoulder. "Maybe you could just think about it, Lance?" he asked, expression earnest. "About enlisting with us? I mean, I don't know whether I'll get in – I'm not like Keith or Shiro or anything – but you could at least try, right? You're not opposed to the idea, are you? You even sounded like you kind of wanted to."

Lance could only stare at his friend and struggle to ignore the constriction of his chest. With his friends… into the army… even posted in far-flung stations as they would potentially be, the prospect was captivating. Maybe it was simply all the talk of that afternoon, but Lance found himself sincerely wishing he could take Hunk up on his offer.

And not only because of Keith. Keith was a big part of it, but he wasn't the only reason.

It wasn't until he left Hunk's house later that evening that Lance even realised what Hunk had said earlier. The words he'd voiced that Lance had heard and accepted as the simple truth but hadn't fully registered. About love. About loving Keith. The words themselves hadn't been particularly outstanding, even having heard them only for the first time in that moment, because Lance realised they were true.

Hunk was right. Lance did kind of love Keith. That was what made the whole situation all that much worse. He hadn't even told Keith. What if he never did?

Thinking about it, about Keith and love and enlisting as he wouldn't be able to do, Lance was thoroughly lost in his pondering for the bus ride home. Barely an hour away, a message buzzed through to his phone and, deeply embedded in his thoughts, Lance distractedly flicked it open. He half hoped it was Keith, even if he knew Keith wouldn't be messaging him. They hadn't really spoken to one another for days now, and Keith had all but abandoned his attempts at messages. That had hurt profoundly given that they'd been speaking through Voltron every day for over a year now, even if his cessation was ultimately Lance's fault.

But it wasn't from Keith. It wasn't even from any of Voltron's paladins. Instead, a message from his papá spread across the screen.

_When will you be home? Your mamá and I have a surprise for you._

Lance frowned. A surprise? What was that all about? More than that, what was Lance's papá doing home already? It was barely seven o'clock. He should still be at the shop, shouldn't he?

Tapping out a quick reply, Lance added the anomaly to the list of things he had to think about and found himself lost in thought. He stared out the bus window without really seeing the darkening streets of New York City.

Lance house was illuminated by too many lights when he finally drew along the footpath beside it. Every window beamed with a warm glow like the Christmas lights that hadn't yet begun to adorn the houses in their neighbourhood. Frowning, Lance strode along the narrow path to the front door. The sound of shouts, of audible conversation, radiated through the door.

A party? Had Lance's parents organised a party as a surprise? What in God's name for?

Noise barrelled into Lance as soon as he stepped through the front door. He could hear Ditz wailing over the top of animated conversation, though in a distinctly joyful fashion. Dee Dee's less voluminous exclamations were even added to the mix, and as Lance paused at the threshold he saw Harper dart from the dining room across the hallway and into the living room. A small child that Lance didn't recognise chased after her with mad cackles that Harper echoed in kind.

Starting along the hallway, Lance paused for a moment to glance into the living room at his sister and the kid. A boy, he saw, dark-haired and with a gap-toothed smile who was even in that moment in the throughs of tussling with Harper in the middle of the room. Harper seemed utterly delighted with her playmate, and Lance was nothing if not surprised because Harper had always been a reserved kind of kid with anyone outside of the family. Or at least he was surprised until –

"Jorgie?"

At his name, the gap-toothed boy paused in his play-fighting and glanced towards Lance. His smile grew wider in an instant, vibrancy brightening his face. "Lance!" he cried before he was flinging himself to his feet.

Jorge. Lance's primo Jorge, barely six years old, who lived in Santiago de Cuba with the majority of Lance's extended family. Lance hadn't seen him in person for years, since he was little more than a toddler, and only recognised him from their online messaging. What the hell was he doing here? Lance could only shake his head in a mixture of confusion and his own rising delight as Jorge flung himself from Harper to launch a flying attack upon him instead. His spindly arms wrapped Lance's midsection in a fierce embrace and he babbled in rapid-fire Spanish almost too fast to be understood.

"Hey, Jorgie," Lance said, offering an awkward hug in reply. "What in the hell are you doing here?"

"Mamá and Papá and me, we came," Jorge said by way of explanation. "We came on the aeroplane and I got to sit on the window seat and looked out the window and saw all of the clouds and Mamá said that the other plane I saw was probably a bird but I don't think it was a bird 'cause…"

He continued into inane chatter and Lance could only listen. This was his parents' surprise? His tía, tío and primo were visiting? That was unexpected. He hadn't known they were coming and his family rarely made such trips. Why hadn't Lance been told about it? Not that he was upset for their sudden appearance, but it would make for something of a tight squeeze in their house.

As Lance listened to his primo, he turned from the living room in an awkward shuffle. Jorge had apparently deemed it appropriate to use his feet as stilts and still kept his arms wrapped around his waist in a crushing hold. Harper following on their tail with a bouncing step as Lance made his way towards the dining room and kitchen beyond. Poking his head through the doorway, it was to behold a riot of noise and activity.

Lance's mamá was in the kitchen alongside his papá, the both of them weaving around one another in a seemingly choreographed dance of scooping rice into bowls and tossing cooked vegetables onto plates alongside steaming meats that flooded the room with their rich aroma. Lance's sisters were a mixture of wild movement – in Mika's case – and carefully composed motions – namely Isabel as she set the table – while Janey swung her legs idly where she sat in one of the dining chairs. Lance's brothers chased Mika around as though running on the fuel of excitement despite the late hour. Weaving throughout them all, Ditz and Dee Dee ran like crazed cats high on catnip.

As Lance watched, his attention was caught by his tía Tess as she stepped in Ditz's path and, with more strength than her diminutive frame would suggest possible, scooped him up before he could trip over himself. Lance's tío Rick caught Mika mid-stride as she made her own dancing rotation of the dining room and their jovial voices flooded the air alongside his parent's kitchen conversation. Ditz's protests and Dee Dee's teasing laughter where he stood below his twin brother added to the mix in a mad chaos of noise.

It was crazy, but Lance could almost have expected that. His immediate family was far from quiet on the best of days, something that Keith had initially confessed he found overwhelming when he'd started visiting for dinner, but that was to say nothing of the family gathering in greater numbers. It had been years, with none quite financially capable of making the trip, but Lance could remember his visits well enough from his childhood for the blaring noise and movement, the mania and excitement. It was somehow familiar – except it had been so long. Too long, perhaps, since they'd had family visit them in New York, and as a result the kitchen-dining room seemed overrun by noise and laughter and _people._

As Lance watched in a slight stupor, though admittedly unable to suppress the smile spreading across his lips, he saw that his tía reach a similar conclusion. Shifting Ditz on her hip, she spun towards the kitchen. "Nadia, Franc, I'll put the twins to bed?"

Through the steam flooding the kitchen, both of Lance's parents glanced towards her. Lance's mamá swept a hand through her wayward fringe and offered a grateful nod. "Thanks, Tess. It is getting a bit late, isn't it? You're a blessing."

"Not to worry at all," Tess replied, before spinning once more, making a grab for the back of Dee Dee's collar as he made a sudden scramble for escape, and all but dragging him towards the doorway. "You're not getting away from me, _chico_. Come on, off to bed."

"No!" Ditz wailed, wriggling in her arms, and Dee Dee added his own disgruntlement to the throughs in verbal support. "I want to stay up with you, Tía!"

"You'll have more than enough time to be seeing me tomorrow," Tess said, deftly pinning Ditz to her hip as she dragged Dee Dee behind her towards Lance and the hallway. "Bed. No fuss, no fuddle."

At Lance's waist, still wrapped around him if less tightly now, Jorge snickered. "Little kids have to go to bed," he said, flashing a glance to Harper. "We'll be able to stay up much, much later, won't we, Harper?"

Though Harper's beaming smile seemed to fuel Jorge's feeling of triumph, Lance knew immediately that he should have held his tongue for even without glancing towards them Tess spoke chidingly. "As far as I've noticed, Jorgie, you've already had your dinner too. I'll be coming for you next."

Then she glanced up and noticed Lance, and all thoughts of reprimand or putting the twins to bed seemed to fly from her mind. "Lance!" Tess cried, and hastened across the room. "You're home! My, look at you, how tall you've grown since I last saw you!"

"Is that Lance?" Rick called from across the room, his sharp-features splitting into a grin. He momentarily abandoned Mika to hasten to his wife's side. "We were waiting for you, kid. Or not a kid so much anymore, I see."

What followed was a whirlwind of greetings, of "Welcome home"s and "It's so good to see you" and "What are you doing here?" that wasn't quite answered properly for the jumble of exchanges and embraces that Lance found himself abruptly wrapped him. Not only by his tía and tío either, strangely enough, for Lance found himself in Mika's arms several times, his mamá and papá similarly pausing from their work in the kitchen to cross to his side. Jorge barely let go of his waist for a moment.

"Ah, but we have so much to talk about!" Tess finally exclaimed, shifting Ditz on her hip once more where she hadn't lowered him even slightly. "It seems like I haven't seen you in forever."

"Well, we've certainly got enough time," Rick called from where he'd retreated with Mika across the room one more. He flashed his wide grin once more. "Lance, prepare yourself. You won't escape until Tess had put you through the ringer more times than you can count."

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to know what my _sobrino_ has done with himself for the past ten years," Tess replied primly. Then she turned her own smile back towards Lance before patting him on the side of his head. "Won't be a moment, alright? I'm just going to put the boys to bed."

"I'll help," Lance offered at the same time that Isabel, finished with her table setting, stepped to his side and offered a murmur of similar intentions.

Tess waved them both aside. "Oh, not at all, Lance. Don't be silly, you just got in. That would be most helpful, though, Izzy – look at you, so mature for your age – and Rick can help me. Rick! Rick, come and put the twins to bed with me." She turned and beckoned to him with a wave turned to a point as she caught sight of Mika too. She speared her with a gesture. "And Mika, too. Unless you're doing something you can come and help."

"I'm doing something," Mika called back, scrambling across the room.

"You most certainly are not," Rick said with a laugh. "Come on, lazy bones. Come and help your tía out."

Despite Mika's groans, she let herself be swept away in the flurry of disappearing aunties, uncles, brothers and sisters. In moments, with Jorge and Harper disappearing post-haste to another flighty game into the living room, the dining room was left deflated like a balloon with its air let out. Ditz's cries of protest echoed down the steps behind him as they departed.

Lance stared through the now-empty doorway after them, blinking in something of a stupor. Then he turned towards where Janey still sat on her chair, legs swinging. "How did you manage to avoid Tess's wrath?"

Janey grinned. "I'm unassuming."

"You're unassuming? You don't even know what that means."

"I do too."

"No you don't."

"It's applicable enough," Lance's papá called from the kitchen. "Though unobtrusive probably would have been a better word to use, Janey."

"Unobtrusive," Janey echoed, repeating the word as though committing it to memory. She nodded, satisfied. "I'm unobtrusive."

Shaking his head, Lance made his way towards the kitchen. It was a mess of bowls, half-filled plates and discarded spoons, and the smell was utterly divine. As he caught a whiff of something distinctly spicy – hot pepper, maybe – Lance hummed in appreciation. He could almost forget about the conversation he'd shared with Hunk and Pidge that afternoon, even if the weight of his difficulty with Keith rested constantly upon his mind. "That smells incredible," he said appreciatively.

Lance's mamá glanced towards him with a smile. "Why, thank you. I wasn't even sure if you'd be home tonight. You're not going out with your friends?" At a shake of Lance's head, she quirked an eyebrow. "Keith?"

This time, Lance dropped his gaze, leaning forwards to drop his elbows onto the counter top. "No," he muttered.

"It's still not…?"

"It's nothing," Lance said shortly. His parents knew that something was wrong between him and Keith, but Lance hadn't told them what. They were surprisingly respectful of his silence, even if Isabel did pick at him like a crow upon carrion.

Shaking off his momentary return to melancholy, Lance jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the doorway. A bubble of laughter that sounded Harper rippled from the hallway towards them. "What's that all about? I didn't realise Rick and Tess were coming to visit. No one's visited in ages."

Lance's parents exchanged a glance as they worked, moving around one another with the experience and ease of years. His papá was the one to reply as he bent over the stove with a wooden spoon raised once more. "It was meant to be a surprise for all of you."

"Well, I'm pretty surprised."

"That's good," Lance's papá chuckled. "Rick always did like to make a scene."

"I'll think that Tess is more inclined to, actually," his mamá said with a smile over her shoulder to Lance. "She's certainly a presence."

"A good presence."

"A very good presence."

"How long are they here for?" Lance asked. "For a visit, yeah? A couple of weeks?"

Once more, Lance's parents exchanged a glance. Then, as one, they paused in their dinner ministrations and turned towards Lance. Lance glanced between them, curiosity and confusion touching a frown to his forehead. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Lance's mamá said, shaking her head. "Far from it, in fact."

"But?"

"No buts," his papá said, stepping to her side and dropping an arm casually around her waist. "We're just not sure for how long."

Lance's frown deepened. "They don't know?"

"No, they don't know. If citizenship pulls through, though, it could be indefinitely."

Lance stared. He felt his eyes widen and slowly straightened from where he leant upon the counter. For a moment his tongue felt numb, until he managed a choked word. "They're actually managing it?"

Lance's papá nodded, a smile splitting his face. "Hopefully. Your tío's always wanted to move here, just the same as me. We talked about doing it as kids all the time."

"No way," Lance said, slowly shaking of his head. He felt his own smile spreading once more. This was fantastic. His tía and tío, Jorge, living in New York with them? Lance's family had always been close, and it was the worst parts about living overseas that they couldn't spend more time with their family. But now… "That's awesome! What made them finally decide to do it?"

Despite their apparent joy that mirrored Lance's own, his parents exchanged another deliberate glance before turning back towards him in synchrony. His papá spoke first. "I asked them to, actually."

"What?"

"Your papá asked them to come," his mamá said. "We could use a couple of extra hands around here. I guess that was just the final nudge they needed to make the decision to move."

Lance blinked. He switched his gaze between his parents in growing confusion. So they'd…? "But why?" Then it hit him and he skirted the counter slightly, concern welling within him. "Is it the money? Has something happened? 'Cause I can pull extra weight at the shop if you need me to, Papà. And I can get another job too. I could start working night shifts somewhere. Hey, maybe I could ask Hunk if I could work at his –"

"Lance," his mamá interrupted him. "No, Lance. It's not that. Calm down."

Lance was calmed none for her words. He found himself wringing his hands and couldn't make himself stop. Something must have been truly wrong for them to ask Rick and Tess to make the move to help them. "What's wrong, then? If I can help with something then I'll –"

"That's just the thing, Lance," his mamá said gently. "You shouldn't have to."

"What?"

His papá continued, leaning into his mamá slightly. "You've given an arm and a leg already to help us out, Lance." He smiled just as gently as Lance's mamá had spoken. "You know you have."

"It hasn't been… bad," Lance said slowly. "That's not a bad thing. I do it because I want to, and 'cause – 'cause you're my family."

"Regardless," his papá continued. "You shouldn't have to. I know we've asked so much of you already, but it's not fair. For you."

"Not fair for -?"

"You've just finished up with school, Lance," his mamá said, her own smile unfurling gently. "You should be enjoying yourself with your friends. Maybe getting a part-time job that you chose yourself. Thinking about college, even, because I think you're smart enough to get a scholarship if you want to."

"I'm not," was all Lance could feebly manage. He glanced between his parents, confusion running rampart through him. They'd done this… what, for him? Surely not just for him. That wasn't fair in the slightest. "It's fine, I'm –"

"You're allowed to have a life, Lance," his papá said. "I love the shop and I love being a barber, but that was never your calling."

"Are you saying I'm a bad barber?" Lance asked with as much indignation as he could muster. It wasn't much.

Lance's papá laughed. "Not at all. But your tía actually enjoys it and she's keen to step in for you. With Rick around to help out your mamá some –"

"And he'll be getting a job," Lance's mamá said with a pointed glance towards his papá. "I won't have him hanging around the house doing nothing useful."

"Of course," Lance's papá said with something of a fond smirk down at her. "Without a doubt." Then he turned back to Lance. "We'll pick things up from where they've fallen. You don't need to give so much anymore, Lance."

"Do what you want," his mamá said.

"Or think about what you want to do," his papá added. "What does Keith want to do with himself? I'm sure if you talked the both of you, you'd be able to work out whatever's going on between you."

Lance glanced back and forth between them. This was… this was insane. Ludicrous. More than that, it was far too coincidental after the conversation he'd shared with his friends earlier that day. Far too much. And yet, in spite of his instinctive urge to refute his parents' words, to call them out on the foolishness, to claim that he didn't need anything otherwise and he wouldn't know what to do even if he was given the chance to try 'something else', Lance couldn't utter the words.

This was…

This was…

It was exactly what he needed.

Lance loved his family dearly. He thought the world of them and wanted only what was best for each and every one of them. And yet the anchor of working at his papá's shop had grown rusted, beginning to stick to the rock upon which it was embedded, and Lance felt himself ache for it. He didn't let himself want anything else, but Lance knew he did. He wanted sorely.

His mamá seemed to perceive the conflict coursing through him. She stepped towards him and, raising her hand to the side of his head much as Tess had done but minutes before, she grazed her fingers through his hair. "Don't look so worried, Lance. We've got this worked out. So you should work things out too."

Lance stared down at her smiling face, the lines of her wrinkles pronounced from years of weariness and stress, and he thought. Was it possible? Was it even possible for everything to change so suddenly? Lance almost couldn't believe it. He struggled to consider it and was almost guilty for the rising tide of euphoria that lapped within him. He couldn't help but allow a tentative, incredulous smile to touch his lips. His mamá beamed at him in reply before stretching up on her toes to plant a kiss on his cheek.

Lance extricated himself from the dining room after that with a word thrown over his shoulder that "I'll just be a moment". He couldn't help but hasten into his bedroom with the sudden, desperate need to _do_ something. It was too good. It was too good to be true, surely. Lance wasn't allowed this, wasn't able to do _this_ , and yet… he was. This was his. This was his chance, and though guilt at the sudden liberation still coursed through him, Lance couldn't let it hold him back.

This was it.

This was everything.

Everything. And now he could finally…

Blocking the sound of Jorge and Harper's vibrant, revamped cries from the living room, Lance closed the door to his room. His hand into his pocket in a fumble. As soon as Lance had his phone in hand he was dialling the now-familiar number and pressing it to his ear. The sound of connection and an almost tentative "Hello?" met him within seconds.

"Keith?" Lance said, and he wasn't sure if excitement or desperation was more pronounced in his voice. "I need to talk to you."

* * *

For Lance, the real change arose when he was offered the freedom that he didn't even know he so desperately wanted.


	6. Sharpshooter18

_Without blinking. Always without blinking. Lance had learned that much since he'd first begun learning to fire a rifle. Don't blink, not even after the trigger was pulled._

_Crouched as he was behind what could barely be called a wall – it would hardly reach up to his waist if he stood – Lance peered along the length of dirt road between worn, slouching houses. His vision was skewed through the scope, sights marred by the crosshairs, but it hardly mattered. Lance was more than familiar with the presence of the thin lines. That anyone would think they could truly shoot without it with optimal was ridiculous._

_Gunfire cracked through the air but it wasn't anywhere near him. Or it wasn't close enough to be of any real concern. Lance had barely dropped into the shelter of the crumbling wall moments before, springing to his feet to shift positions after the previous round had grazed just a little too closely._

_Close-range firefights were always trickier to navigate. In many ways, Lance preferred sniping._

_The sound of his paladins exchanged murmured through their comms. Lance listened with only half an ear. He knew he responded to their words, knew he said something or other and that the paladins replied, but he barely attended to the conversation._

_Focus._

_Utter focus._

_Lance had never been one for particular one-track mindedness, but in this instance he made an exception. He instinctively made it these days._

_Another shot fired and Lance shifted just slightly to swing his sights into line. So obvious. There was only one more assailant raining hell upon him, and it was so obvious where he was firing from. Lance had barely needed more than one shot, but to make sure…_

Sorry, pal, _he thought to himself grimly._ It's not your day.

_He saw the flash of movement. He saw the second the opening presented itself. Detachedly, because Lance could only ever act with utter detachedness in such situations, his finger twitched on the trigger._

_Pause._

_Breathe._

_Don't blink._

_The sound of his own gunfire snapped through the air in a deafening crack. Through Lance's scope he saw the figure of his opponent, that barely visible from their half-hidden perch, topple to the ground._

_Lance released a huff of breath. In an instant, like a loosed rubber band, reality snapped back upon him. In spite of the fact that Lance was still – would always be – struck by the horrors of warfare, he felt satisfaction flush through him. Swinging his rifle from its seat atop the wall, he darted at a crouching run towards the nearest alley. In seconds, he'd taken cover from his exposed position._

_"And that's a wrap," he all but whispered through his headpiece. "Thank you, dear audience, the coast is momentarily clear. We'll see how long it lasts."_

_"_ Nice work, Sharpshooter _," Shiro said curtly. He was always curt, if not so much cruel. Lance knew that he was simply so hyper-focused that he had no space for emotion. He grew detached too, just as Lance did. Just as they all did. "_ Rendezvous with us ASAP."

_"Gotcha," Lance replied just as shortly. He slowed to a stop at the end of the alley and, fingers tightening on the grip of his rifle as he held it low across his torso. "I'll make like a rabbit."_

"They're all down?" _Keith's voice sounded with his usual monotony through the comms. Keith wasn't usually one for visible emotion, but Lance had discovered he wore his own particular brand of detachedness in a tense situation._

_"Aren't you proud of me?" Lance couldn't help but quip as he peered briefly around the end of the corner before making a break for it. "You know they call me Sharpshooter because –"_

"Of how you thread the needle?" _Hunk interrupted lowly._

"Because you're so good with the ladies and gents," _Pidge replied with a slight huff to her breath that told Lance she was on the move._

"Because you know which end of a gun to hold and which end to point?" _Keith said, and Lance thought he detected a touch of teasing amusement in his voice too._

_"Alright, there's no need to get on my back, you bunch of bastards," he grumbled. Hastening down another crack between squat houses, he paused at the end once more. "There's nothing wrong with having a little pride in my skill."_

_Someone might have replied to that. Lance thought they might have, anyway, but he was abruptly distracted. At the middle of the shadowed alley, dimmed nearly to indiscernibility, he was abruptly and rather rudely informed that the coast was perhaps not as clear as he'd hitherto thought._

_A figure crashed out of a side door before him and Lance barely had the chance to skid to a stop before he found the muzzle of an assault rifle in his face. For a heartbeat Lance couldn't breathe, and the hitch of his heartbeat in his chest was deafening._

_Then that silence was broken by the sharp snap of his attacker's words. He was big, broad, a hulk of a man, and when he swung his rifle up to his shoulder, Lance very much believed he knew how to use it._

_The words themselves were curt, in a foreign language and far too fast for Lance to make out. A question? Lance didn't know. He barely got the chance to attempt to raise his own rifle, to think to retaliate, before an ominous click chased the man's words. A click and then –_

_CRACK!_

_The man was lurching forwards in a second. Lance sprung back a step and it was only that which saved him from being crush beneath the man's flung figure. He was down in a second, weapon flung from his hands, and in an instant Lance swung his own rifle up to shoulder in readiness._

_Automatic. To do so was instinctive._

_He didn't fire, however. The man was down and his limpness clearly said he wasn't going to rise again. Lance spared him a glance long enough to discern that much, long enough for his heart to start beating properly once more. His mind clinically assessed the evidence of No Immediate Danger before he lifted his gaze._

_And rolled his eyes. "Really, Red? What happened to following orders? Regrouping, my arse."_

_Keith didn't have his own rifle raised. Instead, it was slung over his shoulder, thick sling biting into his heavy Kevlar vest. His arms were still raised from whatever assault he'd struck the felled man with. His expression was flat, face pale in the encroaching evening, and his gaze trained with unblinking intensity upon the man with his own clinical assessment. Then he raised his gaze and lowered his fists._

_Fists. He'd used his fucking fists and the blunt end of a knife. It was so typically Keith, so reminiscent of the violent, fluid, bodily assault Lance had witnessed before he'd arrived on the scene at the main road to take out their opponents. He couldn't help but shake his head once more._

_"I am following orders," Keith replied before turning from the felled man. He jerked his head. "Which you're not doing standing there. Come on. Pick up your feet."_

_And just like that, with blank professionalism, Keith disappeared from the alley once more. Lance rolled his eyes for the second time. So typically Keith. Reprimand_ Lance _for not following orders? Clearly he was overlooking his own deficits._

_Not that Lance was complaining. He'd have been in a fix if Keith hadn't arrived on the scene, he knew. He didn't complain, didn't call after Keith as he hastened in his wake. He swung around the corner of the building and fell into a rapid, crouching run in after his retreating footsteps._

_Lance often found himself following as such, even if he would never admit it. He'd been following Keith for a long, long time. What he'd come to learn was that, no matter how far ahead he seemed to get, Keith would always pause just for a moment for him catch up._


	7. Pidge

_Voltron: Year Two, Month 17/24 of rebirth_

_Paladin of Operation: DiffWitch_

* * *

 

_Sharpshooter18: Why is it that whenever I'm in New York you seem to be off yonder?_

_Red: I don't know. It's not like I coordinate it that way myself._

_Sharpshooter18: Life is so unfair._

_Butterfingers: Don't worry, Sharpshooter. I'll be there :)_

_Sharpshooter18: While your presence is appreciated, Butters, I feel like you and Red have very different roles in my life. There's no point in having a dozen apple pies when you need something savoury, you know? It doesn't matter how good those pies are if you're really hankering for quiche, right?_

_Butterfingers: An apt analogy._

_Butterfingers: Very appropriate._

_Red: I can't believe you just said that._

_Red: And did you really just choose quiche because_

_Sharpshooter18: Because?_

_Sharpshooter18: Just kidding. Love you, babe._

_Butterfingers: :D_

_Butterfingers: Fantastic. I didn't even realise it nearly rhymed with your name._

_Butterfingers: Absolutely fantastic. It makes the analogy only even more appropriate._

Shaking her head, Pidge rolled onto her side until she was sprawled onto the cooler half of her pillow. She was signed in to Voltron but for once didn't feel the urge to talk. No need to contribute. She was simply content to watch and read.

Or at least as content as she could be. Pidge hadn't truly been content with her circumstances for some time.

_BlackLion007 has entered the chatroom._

_BlackLion007: Hello, everyone._

_BlackLion007: Oh, we're all here! How wonderful!_

_Sharpshooter18: Yeah, except the Princess._

_Red: Working._

_Butterfingers: She's probably working._

_Butterfingers: Damn. Beat me with the single-worded reply, Red._

_Red: Thank you. I accept your admittance of my victory._

_Butterfingers: Is this competitiveness that I hear from you?_

_Red: ?_

_BlackLion007: How is everyone? I feel as though we haven't spoken in far too long._

_Sharpshooter18: It's been nearly a whole week! What is Voltron becoming?_

_Sharpshooter18: Don't worry, guys, I'll tell you what so you don't have to strain your little heads. Quiet, is what. Too quiet._

Pidge almost replied to that. Lance wasn't stupid, was far from being even a little bit of an idiot even, but he did so like to make others think he was less intelligent than he truly was for some reason. Pidge didn't believe the ruse for a second – or at least she didn't anymore. The time she once believed the faceless Sharpshooter18 to be nothing more than a mouth with fingers to type with had long since passed.

Not that Pidge didn't take any opportunity to prod at him and tease him that she could. Not many of her friends were as inclined towards verbal warfare as Lance was. Hunk was too much of a softie that didn't like such conflict, Keith listened to others opinions but was so rarely swayed by any such argument that it made attempting to sway redundant, and Shiro was far too diplomatic for such confrontations, even if Pidge did ever feel inclined to start one with him. Allura was just a little bit too, though she came more from the objective, logical point of view that made debates not nearly as vehement.

Such debates required emotional investment, and Lance was the only one who really provided Pidge with that. She missed him for it. She missed all of her friends, for that matter. Two years ago, Pidge knew she would never have considered she actually longed to see someone other than her brother Matt and perhaps her dad when she was feeling lenient, but the paladins of Voltron were different. They'd always been different.

It was coming up to six months since they'd all enlisted. Six months since Shiro had gone back to active duty, since Keith and Lance and Hunk had signed themselves up for the Buddy Program in the army. Their absence was like a hole had opened up in her chest, and Pidge still didn't know how to deal with it. She remembered all too well the moment she'd realised that they would all be leaving her. Maybe not for good but for a time.

It was at the Castle of Altea. Every other weekend the paladins converged on at Allura's home, and every weekend spent there only reaffirmed to Pidge how lucky she'd struck it to find such a purely wonderful group of friends.

Or at least she had, until those weeks surrounding when Keith had told Lance he was enlisting. That had been horrible. It had been a whole new kind of horrible, even, because though Lance didn't get angry with Keith, and though Keith didn't shut everyone out, it was Wrong. Lance and Keith as Lance and Keith had been something Pidge had acknowledged as the norm almost as soon as she'd met them. They just seemed to… fit.

Lance became dejected, to say nothing else. When Keith first told him, that was exactly what he was. Pidge wasn't exactly sure of black and white reasoning for his dejection, except that he was scared. He didn't hate the army, or the idea of joining, and Pidge had even though it might even appeal to him too in a way. But despite his stoic insistence of otherwise, Lance was scared. He didn't want Keith to leave.

And he didn't want any of them to leave, apparently. Pidge kind of wished she hadn't blurted out that Hunk was enlisting too in her moment of oblivious foolishness. It had been just one more blow upon Lance that he hadn't had the presence of mind to deal with at the time.

Except that, when Pidge arrived at the Castle after being picked up by Coran and experiencing a truly terrifying drive north of New York City, Lance had already arrived. Lance and Keith and Shiro all, lounging about the primary living room – because of course, a castle would have more than one living room.

Or at least Lance lounged. Keith never quite seemed capable of 'lounging' with any kind of comfort, and Pidge was fairly certain it wasn't in Shiro's genetic makeup to seat himself in a position so slovenly. Pidge hardly noticed the distinction, however. She didn't realise because Lance's lounging was entirely all over Keith.

He sprawled quite comfortably across him and as Pidge stepped through the door after Hunk, as she paused and blinked in surprise, it was as though the distance that had sprung between the two of them had been erased entirely.

"You don't seem particularly upset," Keith was saying, his attention turned to where Lance lay across his lap. Pidge might have thought that someone like Keith would object to anyone using him as a human pillow, but apparently Lance was an exception. "Besides, you seem to quite like your aunt, don't you? I would have thought you'd be quite happy to hand your barber shears over to her."

"Shears, Red?" Lance said, smirking with a rise of his eyebrow and a teasing twitch of his lips. "What am I, a sheep-shearer?"

"I don't know, are you? I know little enough about haircutting or sheep-shearing to be able to make the distinction."

"Cold, Keith," Lance said, reaching up to tug at Keith's fringe in nothing if not open affection. "Super cold."

Pidge glanced incredulously to Hunk at her side who, arrived alongside her in Coran's car and only just recovered from the trip, was watching with a similar stupor. He caught her glance but only shrugged expansively and took himself from the doorway, crossing the room to plop down in the chair alongside Shiro and Allura. Pidge watched as he was easily enfolded into the discussion, Shiro and Allura both shifting to accommodate his presence like flowers turning towards the sun. It was a little eerie how similar the both of them were in that regard; they always possessed that kind of alert and welcoming kindness.

Pidge couldn't help but draw her gaze back to Lance and Keith as the conversation arose once more with Hunk's, "Your aunt's started working at your dad's shop already, then?"

"When the hell did that happen?" Pidge found herself muttering.

"When the what did who happen?"

Pidge glanced up to Coran at her side where she'd all but forgotten he still remained. Coran was an odd addition to their group. Pidge couldn't even quite work out how he'd inserted himself so easily, but insert he definitely had. Seamlessly and quite comfortable, too. Pidge found she actually quite liked the older man's presence; he was an oddball, to be sure, but then they all were.

Coran blinked at her expectantly, moustache typically twitching as his lips quirked in a smile. Pidge tipped her head in a gesture across the room. "Lance and Keith. Last time I saw both of them they were brooding and depressed over their communication issues."

Cocking his head slightly, Coran seemed baffled for a moment before understanding dawned. Then his eyes brightened and his moustache quivered atop his widening smile. "Ah! Yes, well, that was before Lance's aunt and uncle moved to New York and he decided to enlist in the army. Seems to have had a bit of a positive effect, eh?"

"What?" Pidge's voice jumped louder than she'd expected but she didn't care. She hadn't know that Lance's aunt and uncle moving to the US had to do with anything but that hardly mattered. Lance was enlisting? Since _when_? Pidge had talked to him but days before at Hunk's house to find him chewing over his issues and desperately proclaiming that he _definitely_ couldn't enlist. Where had the change come from?

Pidge didn't get a chance to drill Coran for answers, however, for with her exclamation all attention swung towards her. Cries of welcome greeted her, from Allura's "Pidge! You're finally here!" and Shiro's, "Come and join us, Pidge," to Lance's abrupt sitting up and smiling welcome of, "About time you joined us. Enough lurking, then. Come on over."

What followed was a flurry of exchanges and Pidge barely had to request confirmation of Coran's words. Sitting in a loose circle on the ring of couches with her friends, Lance announced it to her readily enough himself.

"Yeah, I finally kicked myself up the butt enough and made my decision," Lance said, grinning as widely as ever. "About time, right? I guess I should have probably realised what I wanted in the first place."

"Realised?" Pidge asked dubiously.

Lance shrugged and shared a glance with Keith. "I was maybe just a little reserved."

"Which is so unlike you that you should definitely have known something was afoot," Allura said.

"Well, yeah," Lance said, and he went so far as to scrub abashedly at the back of his head. Then he glanced towards Pidge. "I guess thanks? For helping me to realise it for myself?"

Pidge didn't think she deserved thanks. She didn't even know what help she'd apparently provided to urge Lance towards his decision. "Oh," was all she could think to say. Then, "I guess you're welcome?"

As if the sobriety of the mood couldn't persist for much longer – or perhaps the amicability between Pidge and Lance – it had effectively shattered after that exchange. Then had arisen the usual comfortable atmosphere that they'd shared for months. Even more comfortable than it had been of late.

Pidge listened to her friends talk, and it was amazing what a difference a few days and a couple of rapid decisions could make. Especially between Lance and Keith. They were content. Happy, even, though Pidge heard them both mention more than once that night that it would be a long stretch to consider they'd be posted anywhere near one another after their Basic Training. The same was considered by Hunk; he seemed to have turned over a new leaf with Lance's revelation, a leaf that had already been slowly in the process of turning itself since he'd tentatively decided to enlist as well. Even Shiro seemed to have settled more firmly in his decision to sign back on for active duty.

Such a change only a few days could make. Pidge felt almost like an outsider, and she was only mildly comforted to know that Allura felt a little the same way. She was surprised at first, but after several shared glances and sorrowful, slightly regretful glances were exchanged between them over the dining table that night, Pidge felt something of a kindred spirit in the older woman. She and Allura had never been the closest of the paladins of Voltron, but their commonality grew abruptly profound.

Except that, for herself, Pidge couldn't wait until she was eighteen. She longed to fulfil her dream as she'd so wanted to. She too would almost certainly be posted in a region apart from her friends, but to simply share such a thing… Pidge wanted that. She wanted the army life even more these days than she had before.

She wanted it even more when she spoke to her friends through Voltron in the only way she could and realised the yawning distance between them was more than just physical distancing. They'd always been centred in New York City, and Pidge hadn't realised how much she'd relied upon that proximity until it was taken from her.

_DiffWitch: It's not because of anything the Princess or I are doing. You're the closed-lipped ones._

_Sharpshooter18: Oh, and she speaks!_

_DiffWitch: I do have fingers, yes. I can still type._

_Red: I thought you might have disappeared somewhere and just not signed out._

_Butterfingers: We've hardly even spoken, DiffWitch. Nice to see you!_

_Red: I actually can't talk for much longer, though. I've got to sign out in about five._

Pidge felt tightness squeeze her chest. She should have taken them up on the opportunity to speak. She shouldn't have squandered it with what was admittedly petulant silence. Pidge rarely got to speak to her friends anywhere near enough, and the paladins of Voltron… they were about the only ones she had.

_DiffWitch: Dammit. Sorry._

_BlackLion007: That's a shame. I'm sorry I'm late._

_Red; It's not your fault but entirely mine._

_Sharpshooter18: You're leaving me?!_

_DiffWitch: Us._

_Sharpshooter18: Can I call you later?_

_Red: Of course. Not till after I'm finished for the day, though._

_Sharpshooter18: You got it._

_DiffWitch: I'll probably have to leave in a bit too, actually._

_Butterfingers: Really? Damn, this sucks._

_BlackLion007: That is unfortunate. We'll certainly have to make up for lost time when we're all in New York at once again._

_Red: Yes._

_Sharpshooter18: Definitely._

_Butterfingers: Count me in._

Pidge pressed her lips together to stop their trembling. What was this? She wasn't _that_ upset, was she? And yet her fingers twitched just slightly as she added her own agreement to Shiro's words.

Next time. Who knew how long that would be?

Pidge didn't need to leave quite so early as she'd suggested, but speaking to her friends made her ache for a contact she hadn't ever truly shared with anyone before Voltron had stepped into her life. And in the entirety of the city, there was only one place she could go to in order to seek that companionship. With a word of heartfelt farewell and a promise to hold them all to their own promises, she signed out and climbed from bed.

Midday on a Saturday wasn't a particularly unusual time for Pidge rise. Her friends had teased her for her nearly nocturnal habits at times, to which Pidge had pointed out that more often than not in the past they'd joined her in group chats on Voltron.

She couldn't deny the truth of their words, however, for truth they were. Even after spending nearly an hour chatting with – or simply reading the chats of – her friends, she was still groggy when she pulled herself from her wealth of blankets and comfortable pillows. The warmth of summer blanketed New York City, but in Pidge's apartment it was always stagnantly cool.

That grogginess would have to go. In time, her inability to move fast would have to be shed. Pidge had quite a few things that had to be changed, actually. Quite a few that would have to go if she was going to chase after her dream.

Pidge dressed distractedly, slung her smallest laptop into her rucksack, and slipped from her room. At her age, and given her rising independence that her mom could do absolutely nothing about, she probably didn't need to bypass the living room and poke her head inside to announce that she was leaving. She did anyway, however, only pausing inside the hallway before she entered the living room when she heard voices.

Her mom wasn't alone and the voice that accompanied hers wasn't unfamiliar. More than that, the words they exchanged were far from being the first orf their kind Pidge had overheard.

"… hope it's not a problem. I know that Katie isn't all that great with me coming around, but…"

Tom. Tom Baxter. Pidge knew Tom well enough by now and, contrary to what he clearly believed, she didn't much care if he wanted to invade the apartment. That he seemed to lack a filter of sorts between his brain and his mouth in a way that should have been detrimental to the assumed tactfulness of the soliciting position he held, however – that was a problem.

That he was, clearly with the thought that Pidge didn't know, very much dating her mom – another problem, yet not for the reasons he likely believed.

"She's fine," Pidge's mom replied. "She probably won't surface from her room for most of the day."

"Oh. Well, I guess that's a good thing, then," Tom chuckled.

Pidge felt her lips thin, but she didn't even have a moment to consider responding for herself for her mom's following words. "I hope you're not insinuating criticism, Tom," she said, a warning sharpening the edge of her tone. "You know I don't take kindly to talk like that."

Pidge's mom might have flaws. She might be a workaholic with perfectionist tendencies, a neat-freak who visibly flinched at the sight of a stain, and possess an obsessive fixation with Pidge's grades, but Pidge could never truthfully claim she wasn't protective of her family. Pidge and her mom hadn't gotten along particularly well for years, but she was that at least.

Except that in other things…

"I meant no offence," Tom said hastily, and Pidge couldn't help but roll her eyes as she leaned back against the hallway wall. The man was smitten with her mom. Utterly whipped. He'd probably agree that the sky was green if she said so even offhandedly. "Only that I'm worried she doesn't like me very much."

The sigh Pidge's mom heaved was telling that her briefly raised hackles had lowered into resigned agreement. Pidge felt her amusement die as her mom spoke in a low voice. "I know. She doesn't get along very well with too many people. She has her very specific friends, but otherwise…"

"It must be hard for you," Tom said just as quietly, and from the slight shuffle of movement, Pidge imagined him edging closer towards her mom – on the couch, at the dining table, simply standing on display in the middle of the room as though _waiting_ to be interrupted. "With that and everything else. You're something of a hero at the firm, did you know? Working such late hours you do, raising a child with issue's like Pidge's…"

Issues? Pidge had _issues_? She didn't speak, but the words only added to her detached dislike of Tom. She'd never particularly liked him in the first place; he was too much of a suck up. But apparently he, like everyone else 'at the firm', considered Pidge problematic.

Pidge had known for a time that her secret hadn't been kept so secret at her mom's workplace. She didn't know what had urged her mom to speak out and reveal the truth, though when she'd spoken to her friends about it they'd collectively considered it a good thing.

"You could take it more as an opportunity, Pidge," Shiro said. "I'm sure your mother meant nothing untoward with her revelation at her workplace."

"It could have been in a cry for support?" Allura suggested. "Maybe she's as unfamiliar with how to respond as you are with interacting with her since? Though I think perhaps she could have gone about it a better way."

"Do you want people?" Red said simply enough, almost more as a statement than a question, and that was all Pidge needed. She did want people to know. She wanted them to know so that her secret wasn't a secret anymore at all. So that it didn't feel like something dirty and skewed that she had to keep hidden.

But issues? Pidge didn't have _issues_. She'd accepted that she was gender fluid over a year ago and was comfortable in further accepting her place on the non-binary spectrum. Though she knew labels shouldn't matter, it felt right to finally find a way to term herself, even if such a term was so wide and blanketing that it was barely descriptive at all. It just felt right.

Pidge had accepted it, but her mom still struggled. They'd talked, briefly and awkwardly, but little had become of their conversation. Her mom couldn't quite seem to make it click in her mind that sometimes Pidge was indeed the girl she was born as but other times she felt distinctly different and 'boy' was the only way she could describe it. She _felt_ different – about herself, about her body, about her outlook, even. Pidge was still herself, but when she was a boy she felt just a little different too.

Apparently that was too much for Pidge's mom to comprehend. For someone whose very job necessitated a certain level of open-mindedness, she was remarkably closed on the matter. Equally apparently, that rigidity leant itself to commiserating with the understanding ear of her most recent love interest.

Pidge didn't like Tom. She didn't care that he was in her house, but she didn't particularly like him. She liked him even less when she overheard his conversations with her mom.

Her mom's sigh was audible once more, even heavier this time. "I know I shouldn't make such a fuss over it, but it's just so confusing. I feel like my inability to fully understand gets between us."

 _You're not the only one,_ Pidge thought, rocking her head against the wall once more. She glanced towards the front door, the passage of the hallway a break to freedom and escape from overhearing the further words. She didn't _have_ to tell her mom she was leaving or where she was going. It was simply common courtesy. She should go. She'd like to go. Why did Pidge always have to overhear conversations at the wrong moment? Why, whenever she happened to listen, did she find her mom speaking about her like she was a lost cause? Or was that lost cause such a pronounced thought in her mom's mind that she was always on the cusp of verbalising her despair?

Tom made a sound of commiseration. "I understand," he murmured, and stoically ignored Pidge's internal glare and indignant " _No you don't_ ". "Even the simple act of tiptoeing around the use of pronouns is a little…"

Pidge ground her teeth. _Tiptoeing… It was a little… What, exactly?_ Her fists clenched at her sides. She's spoken to Tom directly all of twice, and he had indeed appeared tentative. Why, Pidge couldn't understand. Or she understood but was only frustrated by that comprehension. Was her gender her entire identity? Did knowing whether she felt she was a boy or a girl on any particular day change everything about her and really deserve such discontent?

Pidge knew she couldn't expect the immediate acceptance and understanding of those around her. She couldn't expect everyone to be comfortable with her and her circumstances right from the get-go. But it was a little hard to be accommodating sometimes, especially when the paladins of Voltron were so readily accepting. They never tiptoed. They never seemed to find the need to.

Pidge waited only a moment longer. She waited long enough to hear Tom's question, his curious and slightly condescending words of, "Do you know whether Katie's going to want to be called a girl or a boy today?" before she turned for the front door. Did her _mom_ know? Did her mom know whether 'Katie' would be a boy or a girl? How in the hell would her mom know when Pidge herself didn't know before she woke up in the morning?

It was unfair. Probably. It was unfair to be so infuriated by the incomprehension of others for a situation that didn't directly involve them. But Pidge couldn't help it. She'd grown towards self-acceptance, towards liking herself just the way she was and to needing no such gratification from acceptance of others. Still, it stung to hear.

There was an awkward moment when Pidge passed the doorway of the living. Her mom and Tom were silent but Pidge didn't glance their way to determine whether that silence was due to locked gazes or attention swung towards her. She didn't spare a moment to speak a word in farewell to her mom either but instead started straight for the front door.

Away. Out. Her mom wasn't a bad person, Pidge didn't believe, but she didn't understand. She didn't accept the way that the paladins did. So Pidge would get away.

The trip to Cornell Tech wasn't a long one by any stretch. Barely an hour by train, Pidge had estimated, and she'd made that very trip enough times to know it was almost an hour exactly. The train carriage was moderately crowded, and Pidge managed to snatch herself a seat, wedged against a window where she could curl her knees to her chest and present as much of a "Please don't talk to me" front that she could manage. With phone in hand and headphones firmly affixed, she couldn't have done much more.

She spoke to Matt.

In the absence of Voltron – which was never absent because Pidge had designed the program that way – Matt was about the only other person she spoke to. Once, Pidge had frequented chatrooms on every possible subject. She'd stated her opinion on sites promoting the ignorant masses and their ridiculous questions, had answered many of those questions and thence sought solace on the more intellectual forums that were like drifting through clean water after slogging through a pit of mud for their shared conversations.

Not anymore, however. For some reason – and that reason was far from being unknown to Pidge – she didn't find as much enjoyment in such drifting any longer. It was intellectually stimulating, but it simply wasn't enough. Not after Voltron.

Matt was good to talk to, however. Or he was when he was available. On active duty as he was, though not deployed, he was likely to be as elusive as the rest of Pidge's friends. He did replied when she messaged him that day, however, with a flurry of enthusiasm and comfort that Pidge hadn't asked for, and she was thoroughly distracted until she pulled up at her usual station for alighting.

Broadway Station. Seventy-second Street and barely two blocks from Central Park

The station wasn't close to the university. More correctly, it was still quite a distance, and would require trekking on foot across the greater part of Lower Manhattan if Pidge didn't take a bus. Which she wouldn't. It might be populated with far too many pedestrians for ease of movement, but Pidge would walk the distance. Or, more correctly, she'd run it.

Pidge wasn't a runner. She wasn't a sportsperson, an athlete, and she certainly didn't _enjoy_ sports. She'd never seen much point in climbing from her bed at the crack of dawn as Keith did to take himself for a run that went quite literally in a circle. She'd never found any appeal in heading to the gym as Shiro did and spending hours on machines that held little function but to make muscles aches in protest as they build upon themselves. Hunk's dedication towards swimming that had been the beginning of his own fitness regime or Lance's commitment to soccer before he'd begun to join Keith in his morning routine – all of it was baffling and slightly horrifying to Pidge. Even Allura's horse riding and seemingly endless strolls across the grounds of her farmhouse of Altea held no appeal to her.

But Pidge had a dream. She had a commitment. The army didn't accept layabouts or skinny weeds of teenagers who struggled to roll from bed in the morning as though it were a physical trial. Computer nerd though Pidge proudly and primarily considered herself, she was also as stubborn as a mule. Or so Matt had told her. He'd said several times in the nicest way possible that maybe Pidge wasn't particularly suited to the army life and that she could build a career just as fulfilling fiddling with her computers at a desk in a dark hole somewhere without windows.

It was the only time Pidge had ever thought Matt was truly wrong. If anything, his suggestion only made her longing even greater.

The run along Eighth Avenue was awkward, and not because Pidge was still finding her pace with running after her commitment of five months ago to really build her fitness. The sea of pedestrians was nothing if not a frustrating barrier, and Pidge was reminded not for the first time why she liked robots more than people. Or at least people other than the paladins and Matt. They were the exception.

The sun beamed vibrantly upon her, and Pidge had worked up a sweat, her breath coming fast and her frustration with the unnecessary slowness of some walkers in particular by the time she drew to a stop before Cornell Tech. Of tall buildings positioned directly street side, even on a weekend the halls were visibly populated. Many might think it crazy to attend college or work on the few days of respite they were provided, but Pidge could understand that kind of dedication. She understood it and commiserated.

The buildings themselves held a certain familiarity to Pidge. She'd spent much of her own weekends within the college's walls, and by now had even grown to recognise several of the faces as they recognised hers in turn. She liked the institution, considered that, had she desired to go to college instead of diving straight into the army, she would have liked to attend. It wouldn't happen, but that didn't mean she couldn't appreciate the facilities – and the glory of high-tech and half-finished projects that would likely be showing themselves at the next Festival of Inventive Arts. Pidge was more than happy to be afforded the chance to peek at them as, entering the university, she made her way along her usual route.

Allura's lab wasn't really a lab at all. Embedded in the centre of long, brightly-lit hallways, empty or cluttered tutorial rooms and offices of staff and postgraduate students alike, it was a perch elevated several floors off the ground and entirely her own. Pidge had been surprised at first that Allura was even based at Cornell Tech; she was a psychologist, had studied human behaviour and seemed to revel in the chance to study anything vaguely living with her utter favourite being that of the mice that Pidge had noticed she had a tendency to collect and nurture when their studies were complete.

The focus of Allura's research had shifted over the years, however. Artificial intelligence was the new 'done thing', and behavioural psychologist though Allura was, she clearly revelled in what was being produced. Pidge had to admire that; Allura was such a practical person, at times logical to the point of being uncanny, and it was strangely gratifying to see her commit herself to a project that was so dubiously considered by so many.

The lab was a mess of tables and chairs placed in skewed disregard. A maze of whiteboards and projection screens, a Smartboard plastered across one wall depicting a complex mish-mash of graphs and peer-reviewed papers. When Pidge poked her head into the room and briefly darted her gaze around the glorious mess, she felt a smile touch her lips. She was sweaty, was still frustrated with her mom and still regretted that her Voltron friends weren't available to talk for any longer than they had, but being in Allura's lab was like sinking into a soothing bath.

She could hear Allura talking before she saw her. For a moment, Pidge though Allura might be talking to herself – because she did that – or to the mice that she often brought with her to the lab – because she did that too. The reply of a deeper voice, however, low in thoughtful contemplation and murmured agreement, bespoke a correspondence likely of the working kind.

Work. Allura worked on Saturdays more often than she didn't. Just as Pidge's other friends did at times. It was insane. Pidge wondered if she'd even love her job enough to readily work on the weekends too. Maybe. Maybe the army would be like that.

She saw them as she entered the room. Allura, dressed in her usual crisp pantsuit that didn't have even nearly the same severe connotations of those Pidge's mom wore, was leaning back against one of the many tables and frowning slightly as she nodded in agreement to her conversation partner. A tall, thin man, though only just as tall as Allura's impressive height, he spoke with rapture as though the conversation itself was the most captivating thing in the world.

Or Allura was; Pidge wasn't sure which. Allura was certainly eye-catching, stunningly tall and stark with her sharply contrasting hair and skin, wide eyes that seemed to drink in so much yet express such softness. And she was smart. And funny. And terribly kind at times. Basically, when it came to Allura, she was the whole package, and Pidge could entirely understand how the man across from her might be even subconsciously in pursuit.

Except that it probably wouldn't happen. Not for the tall thin man and not for anyone else, because as far as Pidge was concerned Allura was spoken for. Keith had said that he thought Shiro and Allura might get together one day. In his usual direct manner, he'd just said it. Hunk had said it too, that he thought they'd be somewhat perfect for one another, and Pidge found herself agreeing with the sentiment before she'd really thought about it. Even Lance had said something to the effect in an offhanded manner, though he'd been the last to reach that conclusion. The only ones who apparently hadn't realised the inevitable yet were Shiro and Allura.

It would likely happen with time, Pidge knew. She was almost certain.

They were speaking about something technical as far as Pidge could discern. Something about Hearts and Minds, which weren't the kind of hearts and minds that Pidge knew most people considered when they heard such words. For Allura, for her project, it was something else. Technical jargon that didn't really sound all that much like jargon at all. Jargon of the deceptive kind.

Pidge took herself to her corner. It had become hers over the past months, and Allura had even dubbed the seat at the very centre of the jumble of tables and chairs and gadgets as Pidge's Chair. Pidge kind of liked that. She had her place in Allura's lab. She had her electronics, the spot where she always put her computer as she did at that moment, and the mess of screwdrivers and headsets, cables and wiring, that Pidge knew her mom would instantly scrunch her nose at and deem an offensive chaos.

Pidge liked chaos. Or she liked this kind, at least. She liked the mess of Allura's lab, the mess that sometimes arose when she used to visit Hunk's house and he'd set the kitchen to radiating warmth and smells with his glorious baking. She liked the mess that was Lance's house too, the McClains with more people stuffed within their four walls than should have been able to fit but was somehow just perfect.

Pidge liked those kinds of messes. Just as she liked the mess that was her very own Rover.

Years ago she'd seen the Rover 2.0 in the flesh. The metal. The flashing lights. The internal guts that breathed perfect wiring and its own kind of intelligence. She'd seen it with Hunk and she'd wanted it dearly. But Rovers? They cost an exorbitant amount that Pidge doubted she'd ever be able to save with her own two hands. And it wouldn't do to receive it as a gift even if someone were able to get it for her – that someone most likely being Allura or Shiro – because it had to be _hers_.

Pidge couldn't afford to buy one so she'd decided to make her own.

To the sound of Allura's talking across the room, the tall man's words of, "It'll only work if you can link them wirelessly to the Heart and that method's only been sporadically tested to little success…" Pidge dropped into her Chair. She folded her legs beneath her, flipped her computer open, picked up the nearest screwdriver that just happened to be the one she'd discarded the last time she'd been at Allura's lab and started to work. She shuffled to the mess of wiring and aluminium, the cables tangled in bright colours and the plastic pieces that glowed like eyes as she flicked a switch and they flared with life.

The Rover – Pidge's Rover – wouldn't be complete for a time. Maybe not for a very long time, even, because Pidge didn't want to rush it. She didn't want to hasten towards the end result because that might ruin it entirely. Her Rover would be a work of art, and it would be _hers_. With the exception of the parts Hunk had contributed last time he'd visited that was, but that was alright. Hunk was allowed to contribute. Pidge had never been one to allow such things in the past, not from anyone, but Hunk was different. In many ways, she sort of wished that Hunk was with her to help out more.

Fiddling with her 'toys' as her mom called them, Pidge noticed only detachedly when the tall man left the room. She was frowning intently at her Rover as it blinked up at her, green eyes – because _of course_ the lights should be green, not an ugly red – staring curiously. Or at least Pidge thought they looked curious. Some people didn't believe that technology, that robots and drone and computers, had a life of their own. Those people were the same ones that put little stock in the work that Allura was conducting.

She was only vaguely aware when Allura's colleague left and Allura herself approached her side, but Pidge wasn't drawn from her work. Her frowning work because _what the hell was that_ and it _shouldn't be there, it shouldn't look like that_. Or at least she wasn't until Coran spoke. "You're working awfully hard there, Pidge. What do you say, time for a healthy break?"

Pidge glanced up from her Rover, blinking rapidly to refocus her attention. She hadn't known Coran had entered the room. The tall, ginger-haired man, moustache waffling with delight as it always did, beamed at her as she met his gaze. He waved a tray of coffee cups and some kind of sweets wrapped in brown paper her way. "Oh. Hello."

"Hello to you too," he said jovially, bouncing in step as he crossed the room to her side. He plopped himself down in one of the chairs surroundings Pidge's work area alongside where Pidge only just realised Allura was similarly seated. Coffee was handed around – gingerly, because "Electronics, Coran. Fuck, be careful" – followed by the crumple of paper and the spray of crumbs as a handful of cookies followed.

"Are these from Levain Bakery, Coran?" Allura asked, biting daintily into her cookie.

Coran winked at her with the exaggeration of his gesture he was prone to making. Always had been as far as Pidge knew. "You bet. They make the best chocolate chip cookies in New York, they do."

"Don't let Hunk hear you say that," Allura said, smiling impishly.

"The Balmeran's don't focus upon the cookie industry," Pidge said, waving aside Allura's light-hearted reprimand. "They're more into the pastries."

"And they make a damn-fine apple pie," Coran said around a mouthful. "No denying that."

"You and Lance are really too alike," Pidge said. "Are you sure you're not related?"

"What?" Coran asked, raising an eyebrow. "How do you mean?"

"I know what you mean," Allura said at the exact same moment, and she flashed her smile towards Pidge.

"What?" Coran asked.

"They're practically the same person."

"Lance in twenty years."

"Coming up to thirty, actually."

"What are you -?" Coran attempted.

"Can you imagine Lance with a moustache, though?" Allura said, ignoring Coran once more. "Fetching, don't you think? I fancy it could be a good look for him."

Pidge smirked. Could Allura sound any more British if she'd tried? Pidge almost didn't hear her accent at times anymore. "Oh, please don't. That image will never leave my head. Ever."

"You two are –"

"Do you think Keith would like it?"

"I think Keith would agree with me and pool his efforts with my own to make sure Lance shaved it off."

"That would be unfortunate."

"Quite the contrary, it would be necessary."

"I've always liked moustaches."

"Have you really?"

"I have."

"Don't tell Shiro that."

"Why would I tell Shiro?"

"What on earth are the two of you talking about?"

Pidge paused as she made to reply to Allura and glanced towards Coran. He was blinking rapidly as he glanced between them both, an expression not at all unusual for him. Pidge couldn't help but grin. She and Allura… they'd grown close over the past months since the rest of the paladins had left. Strangely close, and in a way that Pidge hadn't anticipated. She liked Allura – she liked Coran too, but particularly Allura – and it had become that it wasn't only the space given to her to work on her Rover what drew her to the university anymore.

Allura really was beautiful. She really was funny, too. She was smart and incredibly logical and perceptive to the point that it was borderline supernatural at times. More than that, however, Pidge had discovered that she had a kind of sharp wit about her that was entirely appealing. She made for fantastic company in a way that Pidge hadn't anticipated.

At first, partaking of that company had been more because the rest of Pidge's friends were absent. That had changed over the past months. It had changed because Pidge's understanding of Allura had changed. She wasn't quite as innocent and pure-minded as she appeared. She teased just as incessantly as Pidge did in her own way.

Sharing a smile with Allura, a secret kind of smile that they'd begun to share more often of late, Pidge only shook her head in reply to Coran's words. "Nothing, nothing, Coran. Nothing to worry your pretty little head over."

" _My_ pretty little head?" Coran chuckled, as always good-naturedly brushing aside the fact that Pidge and Allura had both been very much teasing him. He reached forwards and scuffled Pidge's hair in a way that only he could without Pidge snapping like a provoked badger. "I've rarely been called anything so much as pretty before, Pidge. Besides, if anything it would be you two girls –"

He paused. It wasn't an awkward pause, but a pause nonetheless. He frowned slightly, then glanced towards Pidge. "Sorry about that, Pidge. I didn't ask. Are we DiffWitch or DiffWizard today?"

Pidge loved that. Not so much that her friends had to ask but how they asked. How they never seemed to think it strange that they needed to or that it made Pidge comfortable to know that they could. She loved that the wincing and awkwardness, the discomfort and withdrawal that so many people who discovered she was gender fluid, was absent in her friends.

She loved that they asked as they did. She loved that, when they did ask, it wasn't in a manner accompanied by gushing apologies of, "I'm sorry I don't know," and "My mistake, I didn't mean to call you a girl, I'm really, really sorry." Pidge didn't need apologies. She didn't need for it to be a disaster each time someone made a mistake.

She loved that her friends never saw it as a problem. That they never made a big deal of it. That it was always an arousal of circumstances fixed by the simple question of "DiffWitch or DiffWizard?"

Pidge loved that _so damn much_. She loved her friends even more for that. It always reminded her of the first time she'd met them after they'd all first enlisted. It had been a while. It had been a long while and the distance was felt. Even with Allura and Coran's companionship, Pidge had felt the absence of the paladins like a physical ache. Even more so when her mom just didn't _get_ it.

Pidge asked. She asked because for the first time in months, just the week before, Pidge had caved. When her mom had called her a girl but she _wasn't_ , she hadn't corrected her. It stung, felt like a betrayal of herself, but Pidge had still said it.

So in the midst of her friends, the friends that she thought she might have been awkward with but simply _wasn't_ , she asked. "Hey, guys?"

All eyes swung towards her, open and inviting and affectionate and _hers_. Murmurs of "Hm?", "Yeah?" and "What's wrong, Pidge?" met her askance.

Pidge swallowed tightly. "I was just wondering. If I…" She paused. How did she ask? How did she ask something that suddenly felt so integral to know?

The words blurted out of their own accord before she'd even known what she was going to say. "If I felt like a boy but I asked you to call me a girl, would you?"

It hadn't been what she'd meant to say. When Pidge wanted an answer, it wasn't to that question. But before she could correct herself, the answer was presented anyway. By Keith, and Pidge was reminded of the first time, of that very first time on Voltron, when she'd been DiffWizard and he'd so readily accepted her as she was.

He nodded decisively. "Of course I would."

"We," Lance added.

"We," Keith corrected without ceremony.

Pidge blinked, stared at him, at the instantly agreeing faces around her. She couldn't understand, couldn't comprehend, because that wasn't what she'd wanted to hear. If she felt like a boy she wanted to be acknowledged as a boy, not… "Even if I wasn't a girl?"

"It wouldn't matter what you were, Pidge," Shiro said, leaning towards her slightly in his seat. "It doesn't matter at all."

"But…"

"What matters is what you'd want to be called," Allura said. She smiled fondly. "We'd only want to make you happy, Pidge. I know I speak for everyone here when I say that my friendship with you changes not in the slightest for whether you are a boy or a girl. You're Pidge and we'll call you however you'd like."

 _You're Pidge_.

That was it. That was all of it. Wholly. Completely. To Pidge, it mattered if she was a girl or a boy, but to the paladins… she was just Pidge. Maybe she should have been hurt by that realisation, but she wasn't. It simply felt so good to be so unconditionally loved.

Pidge loved her friends in return. Truly loved them, and she'd only been utterly certain of that fact after that moment. She was reminded of it every day in the simple knowledge their existence provided. Pidge loved that perhaps most of all.

Shrugging at Coran's words, at his askance, Pidge smiled. "DiffWitch," she said simply, and that was that. Coran nodded, Allura alongside him, and they accepted it.

Why was it so easy of them when it seemed so hard for her mom?

"What are you doing here today anyway, Coran?" Pidge asked, taking another bite of her cookie. She'd never say so to Hunk, but Levain Bakery really did make the best cookies. "You don't usually come around until Allura's finished for the day."

"Well, it is nearly five o'clock," Allura said around a sip of coffee. Or more likely tea, given it was Allura. Pidge had never been partial to tea but apparently Allura had been raised on it like it was water.

Glancing her way, Pidge felt her eyebrows rise. "Really?"

"Where has the afternoon gone, eh?" Coran chuckled.

"Into my Rover, apparently," Pidge muttered, sparing her drone a glance. It had really been hours that she'd lost in her work? It had always been the way with Pidge and her building – her computers, her gadgets or 'toys' – but not usually for quite so long.

"It's coming along," Allura said, approval colouring her voice. "Very nicely coming along, too. I like that you've made it green."

"I know, right? Green's a far better colour than red."

"Red was the colour of the original, correct?"

"That would be right, yes."

"Don't let Keith hear you say that," Coran warned.

Pidge shrugged. "If it was Lance then I'd be worried, but Keith doesn't really care about things like that. He's not particularly defensive when it comes to favouritism of primary colours."

"Are you saying Lance would be indignant on Keith's behalf or in defence of his own favourite colour?" Allura asked.

Pidge snorted. "You now Lance only likes blue so much because Keith likes red, right?"

"I had suspected as much, yes."

"Is that why Hunk likes yellow too?" Coran asked.

Another shrug and Pidge popped the last of her cookie into her mouth. "I don't think so. Hunk just likes it because it's his Voltron colour, I think."

"I'll admit, I am fond of my own colour," Allura murmured.

"Pink?" Pidge pulled a face. "Allura, really?"

"There's nothing wrong with the colour pink," she said a little chidingly.

"Except that it's pink."

"You pin negative connotations to the colour."

"Only because the rest of the world tagged it with those connotations first."

"Ah, but why not make a mockery of the stereotype pink entails, then?" Coran suggested. "Why, I myself have a whole shelf dedicated to pink attire."

"I never would have thought it of you, Coran," Pidge said, as blank-faced as she could manage. "I'm sure it matches your hair superbly."

"It does at that."

"You really don't like pink?" Allura asked.

Pidge pursed her lips. "I don't… not like it. It's just that my mom always used to make me wear it to be more of a girly-girl so…"

Coran sighed his understanding as Allura nodded slowly in her own. "I see. Negative connotations, perhaps?"

"Negative connotations."

They fell silent, and though the mood had abruptly dropped in vibrancy it wasn't quite awkward. Allura sipped her tea. Coran handed Pidge another cookie. She accepted it wordlessly and the sounds of communal munching met the hum of electronics and the sporadic beeps of technology.

Finally, Allura spoke. "Are you alright, Pidge?"

Pidge glanced up from where she'd been distractedly staring at the dregs of her coffee, from the passing thought, _I hope Coran remembered to get decaf_ , because otherwise she'd be up all night. "What?"

"Mm," Coran hummed as if in agreement. "You do seem a little down."

"Down? I'm not down."

"Did something happen with your mother?" Allura asked.

They hit it. They hit it like a nail on the head and in an instant it all came rushing back.

Pidge didn't think she had a hard life. Not compared to some. When she thought of even her own friends, she realised just how good she had it. She had her health, which was more than Allura had possessed for most of her life. She had all of her limbs, which Shiro lacked and still ached for, regardless of how he was patching himself together once more.

She still had both of her parents alive, which was more than Keith had. More than Hunk had, too. She'd never struggled for cash as Lance's family did either, had never had to put her love for technology on the line as Lance had stepped back from his soccer, had briefly put his enlistment on hold, to work for long enough to support that family.

When Pidge considered it, she thought she had it pretty good. She had a family. She had enough money to get by – more, even if it wasn't her own. She had the luxury of attending school, which, even though she didn't like it, she couldn't help but appreciate after Hunk had so struggled to obtain the same. More than all of that, she had the best friends in the world, the most supportive, who had helped her take her own steps towards the self-acceptance she hadn't realised she'd lacked. The self-acceptance that she'd so desperately needed.

Pidge didn't have it bad. She just wished that the heavy ache in her chest realised that fact as much as her rational mind did.

Once upon a time, Pidge wouldn't have spoken of her problems. Not to anyone with perhaps the exception of Matt, but even he as a rare exception that sometimes wasn't an exempt at all. Now was different, however. Now she had friends and those friends… they were the most incredible people in the world.

So instead of withdrawing, instead of tucking her chin and shaking her head and grumbling something about people not minding their own business, Pidge spoke. With a nod, she glanced between her two friends, the only two members of Voltron within reach, and sighed. "Yeah. Just something stupid."

"It's never stupid, Pidge," Allura said gently.

"No, it is. I shouldn't expect so much when I know it's never going to happen."

"There's nothing wrong with having expectations," Coran said. He raised a finger before him, moustache twitching. "Expectations are the dreams we've accepted as a certainty. To have them trashed is a hardship that we must suffer through every day."

"That's weirdly profound of you, Coran," Pidge said, and she couldn't help but smile slightly.

"I read it in a book once. A very long, thick and boring book whose name escapes me at this moment."

"It's not entirely correct, perhaps, but indeed profound nonetheless," Allura said with a soft chuckle. Then she turned to Pidge, her smile soft once more. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

Pidge shook her head. "No. Not really. Thanks anyway, but I think I've just got to accept the inevitable. Mom's probably never going to get it and that's… that's okay."

"It's not, really," Allura said quietly. "But then sometimes things just aren't."

"Yeah," Pidge said. "Sometimes."

Another pause rung between them. Then Pidge, with positivity that would have once left her floored at herself, smiled and shrugged aside her melancholy. "But it won't be forever. As soon as I turn eighteen I'm enlisting like the rest of Voltron has."

"As soon as you finish school, you mean," Allura said. "Could you imagine telling Shiro that you're not going to finish school?"

Pidge fought to withhold a wince. "We're still at odds over that point."

"Talk to Hunk. He'll convince you to stay on longer."

"Or Fae," Coran said. "You should talk to Fae."

"I most certainly shouldn't," Pidge replied, because she knew that Fae would definitely convince her to stay in school if Shiro didn't manage. Which Shiro would if she ever voiced her thoughts; he likely wouldn't even have to say anything and she'd feel guilt-tripped into staying. Not that she didn't think she probably would anyway, but she liked to think it was her own decision that urged her to do so. "Regardless, I've got to start as soon as possible. I've got a whole heap to catch up on with the boys."

"It's not a race, Pidge," Allura chided gently, though her lips quivered.

"Not at all," Coran said. "Why, have I ever told you that when I was in the army, it took me a solid six years to make it out of Ohio? You would have thought…"

Pidge had heard. She'd heard a lot of Coran's stories of his time in the army, a reality that Pidge hadn't even known about until all of her friends had announced they were enlisting – or returning in Shiro's case. It seemed that every neighbour and his dog had ties somehow, so it shouldn't have been unexpected.

But she listened nonetheless. She listened as Coran spoke of his days as a pilot – a purely terrifying prospect in Pidge's opinion, given how appalling he was at driving – and the deployments he'd been sent on. It was strange in a way to realise. It truly did seem that everyone Pidge knew was related to the army in some way. Strange, but… nice.

They spoke for a time together, and that was nice too. It was nice because they had each other, and despite Pidge's regret at her friends' absence, there was a certain comfort to be found in those that remained. Allura probably should have been working and Pidge probably should have gotten back to her Rover, but neither of them made any efforts to end the conversation. Not when Coran launched himself into another tall tale that Pidge didn't quite believe and that she only realised halfway through its retelling wasn't actually a story of his army days but of his civilian life instead.

Coran had certainly had a colourful life. Pidge wasn't sure how much of it she believed and how much of it was exaggeration.

Her phone beeped at some time around six o'clock and as Allura turned towards Coran with a slight roll of her eyes and the words, "Father never said that. I'm sure I would remember," Pidge plucked it from her pocket. She felt her smile, the smile she hadn't even known was settled upon her lips, die as she read the message.

_Are you okay? Mom just messaged me asking if I knew where you were._

Her mom. She'd messaged Matt, who had then messaged Pidge. She'd messaged Matt who was a whole state away rather than Pidge who she'd seen barely hours before. Had she seen her? Maybe that was it. Maybe she'd seen Pidge leave after hearing her words and didn't want to contact her directly. Was she uncomfortable? Regretful?

Unlikely. Pidge's mom wasn't one to become regretful about… anything, really. She was a strong woman, resolved, determined and opinionated. She was almost too stubborn in the force of those opinions, too, and when Pidge's mom thought she was right, not heaven nor hell could convince her otherwise.

Pidge didn't think her mom had seen her. She simply thought that, much as Pidge did, her mom didn't know how to talk to her. Didn't really want to talk to her, perhaps. Any hopes Pidge had of mending a relationship that had never been strong to begin with had faded long ago. It had faded more noticeably since Pidge had realised that she didn't need to mend it.

She didn't. She _didn't_. Pidge had the best people in the world as her friends, and she didn't… if her mom didn't ever understand and didn't ever quite want to, then…

A warm arm slipped around her shoulders and it was only then that Pidge realised she'd been staring unblinkingly at her phone for a long time. Nearly a whole five minutes of muteness and staring. When she finally lifted her gaze it was to turn towards Allura who had shifted to her side. Allura, who'd wrapped an arm around Pidge's shoulders in a casual embrace as she'd taken to doing of late. Pidge didn't usually like contact. She didn't like other people invading her personal space. But with the paladins it was different. With Allura it was different.

Allura didn't ask if Pidge was alright. She didn't ask as she had early that afternoon. Maybe she didn't need to ask this time. Maybe she could just tell that Pidge was stupidly – _stupidly_ – upset over something that wouldn't change. Something that she knew wouldn't change. Nearly two years it had been since she'd told her mom who she was and nothing had changed. Not really.

It wasn't going to. Pidge knew that. She knew it, and yet…

"I have a surprise for you," Allura said instead.

Pausing for a distracted _I'm fine_ reply to Matt, Pidge raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"A surprise," Coran repeated, as though Pidge perhaps hadn't heard Allura the first time.

"Yeah, I got that. What do you mean?"

Allura didn't reply but instead nodded at Pidge's phone. "You don't need to be home any time shortly, do you?"

Pidge frowned, though more at her phone than at Allura. "I'm seventeen. I'm practically an adult already."

"Said every underage teenager ever, eh?" Coran said, and though there was a touch of teasing condescension in his tone, when Pidge snapped her gaze towards him he only grinned.

"Whatever," she muttered. Then she shook her head. "No, I don't. Why?"

Allura rose from her seat. "I told you. A surprise."

Pidge watched as Allura strode across the room towards the far wall, towards the Smartboard and the mammoth of computer and cables that couldn't possibly be for the board itself that sat alongside it. She fiddled for a moment and Pidge could only frown curiously, could only ignore Coran's enthusiastic fidgeting in his seat.

The board flared to life in a flicker of white light and then Pidge was watching. She watched as Allura navigated the desktop with sure and steady clicks. She watched as she darted through the web and sprung upon the 'super secret' world of Voltron that none but seven people in the entire world had access to. Pidge was sure of that – of the privacy and the secretiveness. She'd been the one to make it so, after all.

Rising to her feet, Pidge drifted across the room towards Allura. "What are you doing?"

"You'll see," Allura replied with a smile flashed over her shoulder. "It's a –"

"Surprise, yeah, I got it." Pidge settled her gaze upon the board and she wasn't surprised. Not really, because Voltron was familiar. Voltron was so familiar that Pidge had – much to her embarrassment, despite sharing as much with her friends – even dreamed about it at times. About the interwoven lion silhouettes. About the paladins and being given the chance to simply talk to them.

Pidge didn't have friends. She'd never really had friends. In many ways, she didn't even see the paladins as her friends either because they were more than that. Other. They were family as only Matt truly was.

The black screen of Voltron's login page consumed the board and Allura's tapping fingers logged her in to the chatroom. Pidge watched with something like curiosity but also very definite uneasiness as Allura typed out the words, _"Hello, everyone. Is anyone here?"_ It felt somehow wrong to look over Allura's shoulder as she wrote, as though she stood uninvited in someone else's room. Not to mention that seeing the primary screen spewing out pink words was a little disconcerting.

"They're not there," Pidge said, glancing towards Allura. "I don't know if you read the chat from earlier today, but they were all pretty busy. Keith said he'd talk to Lance later but –"

A beep interrupted her. A beep that drew her attention from Allura's small smile; a knowing smile, a smile with a hidden meaning. Pidge felt her eyebrows rise as she stared at the screen.

_BlackLion007 has entered the chatroom._

Then a second later another beep.

_Butterfingers has entered the chatroom._

Then another. And another.

_Sharpshooter18 has entered the chatroom._

_Red has entered the chatroom._

Pidge found herself shaking her head as the names of her friends appeared in a splash of colour. Of white, of yellow, of blue and red. It was glorious to see such a rainbow. How long had it been since they'd all been on the chatroom at once? Pidge found her fingers tightening unconsciously around her phone.

"Why…?" she began, then had to pause. To swallow. The paladins were… they were all there. All of them. And Pidge had never wanted her friends more than in that moment. Pidge had never had friends before Voltron, not real friends. Not even at the youth centre that she'd once attended so religiously but had long since rarely taken a further glimpse into. She'd never known how good it was to have them until they were gone again.

She tried again. "Why did everyone say they were busy today if they're all showing up now?"

Pidge tried to force disgruntlement into her tone but she thought she likely failed dismally. The weight clogging her throat saw to that, and it was all she could do to squeeze her phone and drag her gaze towards Allura. Only briefly, however. Only long enough for Allura to shrug a shoulder, murmur, "A surprise," and then turn her attention back towards the board.

Pidge did too. She couldn't not when it beeped like that. When it signalled an incoming message.

_BlackLion007: We're all here? All on time? Good work, everyone._

_Sharpshooter18: I'm seeing a few key players missing, though._

_Sharpshooter18: I mean, I'm not the only one to see it, right?_

_Butterfingers: You are, Sharpshooter. You are._

_Butterfingers: Those missing someone's. They're all a figment of your imagination._

_Sharpshooter18: Hey! You can't say things like that, Butters. I might actually believe you._

_Red: Do you?_

_Red: But you've met them in person and everything._

_Red: Have you been experiencing hallucinations lately?_

_Sharpshooter18: It was a joke, Red._

_Red: I know._

_Sharpshooter18: Dammit, sarcasm._

_Red: You'll get it some day. Eventually._

Pidge couldn't help but utter a snort of laughter. The way her friends spoke, the fast-paced exchange, was so rapid-fire that she barely had a chance to read the messages before another arose. That was always how it was on Voltron, and more often than not Pidge was a part of it.

She loved it. Pidge loved that.

_BlackLion007: We are. Princess, you wouldn't happen to know where DiffWitch is, do you?_

_PrincessOfAltea: I most certainly do :) She's with me._

_Sharpshooter18: Oi! Diff! Where you at?!_

Pidge couldn't help herself. Shaking her head she clicked her phone to life and logged in.

_DiffWitch has entered the chatroom._

_Sharpshooter18: About time! Were you just going to sit like a wallflower throughout the conversation, DiffWitch?_

_Red: Hello, DiffWitch. Nice to hear from you again._

_Butterfingers: Less than half a day and I missed the glaring green of your text._

Pidge huffed another laugh as she typed. It felt strange to do so in the middle of Allura's lab. She was usually focused on Allura herself, or Coran, or her Rover. The lab wasn't usually the place for Voltron chatting, even if it didn't feel at all wrong to do so.

_DiffWitch: Missed you too, Butterfingers. The Rover could use your help, you know._

_Butterfingers: Next time I'm in NYC?_

_DiffWitch: You bet._

_Red: We're getting off topic here. Are we going to start?_

_DiffWitch: Start?_

_Butterfinger: *taps nose*_

_Sharpshooter18: Wait! We're still missing one!_

Instinctively, Pidge glanced over her shoulder towards Coran. Coran himself had drifted at a bouncing step to stand just behind Pidge. He peeked over her shoulder briefly before glancing up at the board. "Is Lance asking for me, is he?"

Pidge nodded. "I think you're his idol."

"After Shiro," Allura murmured as she typed something to the beep the sounded a second later. The words _He'll just listen in with me. We're at the university now so I'm using the projector_ appeared in pink.

_Red: You mean the Smartboard?_

_PrincessOfAltea: Yes, that._

"Well, Shiro's everyone's idol a little, isn't he?" Coran said, rocking on his heels. "Even mine, I think." He chortled to himself.

_Sharpshooter18: Alright, then. Are we ready?_

_DiffWitch: Ready for what?_

_Red: Ready._

_Butterfingers: I'm good._

_BlackLion007: As am I._

_PrincessOfAltea: Me too._

"Allura, what's going on?" Pidge glanced towards her once more, confusion welling within her once more. "And don't just say a surprise again, because that doesn't tell me anything."

Allura's smile grew impish, almost childish in it's sparkling enthusiasm. She didn't get a chance to reply, however, for a moment later Pidge's phone buzzed. Then a sound chimed from the Smartboard. And then –

"Hey! There you all are."

Pidge stared. Hand dropping and phone nearly slipping from her fingers, she stared at the Smartboard. For a moment she hardly even dared to blink for fear that to do so would have them vanishing in an instant.

It was them. All of them. Each one of her absent friends, faces depicted at varying angles as though peering through the skewed eye of a phone's camera, stared back at her. Shiro sat on a couch, Hunk waved a hand, Keith was peering downward with his arms visible before the camera as though propped on a table and Lance was obviously reclined on a bed with phone held overhead.

All of them. All of them were –

"Did you fix it?" Pidge asked, her voice wavering slightly. "The connection, did you…?"

"It took a while, but we managed," Allura said, straightening from where she'd been leaning over her computer. She stepped to Pidge's side, arms folding across her chest as she turned towards the board. "It took some time, too. Connection is hazy when trying to remain under cover."

"For obvious reasons," Keith said.

"Obvious?" Lance asked as he tucked a hand behind his head. "Such as?"

"Infiltrating military bases with video footage for one," Coran said from behind Pidge. "I think that's probably breeching protocol in a number of ways."

Pidge knew that. She knew it was probably wrong to do it, but she'd written and installed the program for video connectivity anyway. It hadn't quite worked, hadn't quite been able to function just yet, but that didn't mean she'd given up on her hopes of actually seeing her friends through Voltron some day. She was… they were…

Pidge didn't have friends. But the paladins were special. The paladins ones… just seeing them soothed something within her.

She didn't ask how Allura had managed it. Allura, for all of her work in AI, wasn't a specialist in communication. She could be, perhaps, if she tried – Pidge persisted that she thought Allura had the aptitude – but she'd never seemed inclined. And yet somehow she'd managed it.

Pidge didn't ask because she would do so later. Later, when her friends weren't right before her. She did glance towards Allura, however, and in a voice that came out quieter than she'd meant to, croaked, "I didn't know this was happening. Is it…?"

"A surprise. For you." Allura beamed. "Do you like it?"

"But why?"

Before Allura could reply she was interrupted. "Hey, now," Lance said overloudly. "I was pretty sure this was for my sake. Homesickness and all."

"Except you're not looking at home," Hunk said. "And I'll add my two cents in. Allura, didn't you say you did it because you knew I was missing New York?"

"You told me you thought I might be lonely," Keith said. "Which I'm not, by the way."

"Are you sure about that?" Lance asked mockingly. "Absolutely sure."

Utterly blank-faced, Keith inclined his head in a nod. "Absolutely."

"Damn. Ice-cold."

"It's for all of us," Shiro said. "I'm sure I'm not the only one missing our chances to catch up in person. It makes the time until our next opportunity seem just a little shorter with this, doesn't it?"

Pidge nodded her agreement along with the rest of her friends. Shiro was right. It was. It soothed something within her that she hadn't quite known was aching, like cream spread over a burn relieving the aching heat. It somehow abruptly didn't seem like it was so long until they would meet, and it didn't seem like it had been so long since last time either. It was easy. As it always was with Voltron, it was easy, as though no time had passed at all.

"That it does," Allura murmured.

"Amen to that," Hunk agreed.

"I've got to say, I miss all of you kids' faces," Coran said. He actually sniffed in a kind of heartfelt punctuation. "It's not the same without you all around."

"Aw, Coran, are you crying?" Lance gave an audible sniff of his own that was proved entirely insincere by his grin a second later. "I'm touched."

"In the head?" Hunk teased.

"He's not that bad," Keith said. "And there's nothing wrong with telling the truth."

"Yes! Boyfriend trumps the best friend! That's a point in your favour, Red."

"Are you keeping a tally now?"

"He has been for a while," Hunk said. "It's kind of sad, actually."

"It is just a little."

"Shiro, they're picking on me."

"Guys, keeping it nice now, alright?"

"Yes sir!"

The chorus of voices were so familiar. The sight of their faces, even dimmed through the eye of the cameras and shaded by poor lighting, were even more so. Pidge missed them. She missed them so much. It might not be the same as them all being together, but it was as close as they could get.

And that was enough. For the moment, it was enough.

As the chorus rippled and undulated with sounds, Pidge smiled. It was a genuine smile, if a little sad, and one of the best she'd felt like wearing in a long time. Quite without knowing why, she said, "Thanks, guys."

Pidge spoke so quietly it was more to herself than anyone in particular, but Pidge knew they all heard her nonetheless. The changes her friends had brought to her life… even in their absence, Pidge could never forget.


	8. DiffWitch

_Pidge wasn't the fastest runner of the paladins. Not by half. That right went to Keith first and foremost before even Shiro. She wasn't a fast runner, didn't particularly enjoy running, but she made it to the meet point first._

_Six o'clock. Compass south exactly. It was a little house, as worn and weary as its neighbours. The roof was split, half caved in. The walls were made of the same dirty brick as those of every wall in the town. Most importantly, however, it was empty. No life. No sound. Nothing._

_Pidge registered it all in a heartbeat, two, before she hastened around the back of the building. It would be foolish to enter through the front door – to enter through any door, for that matter – in a volatile environment, and though Pidge had faith that Shiro had directed them well, it would never do to be too cautious. She didn't even know how Shiro had chosen the site, why he'd chosen it, but she trusted him._

_She trusted BlackLion._

_Pidge didn't lower her rifle as she slung herself through a shadowed window. She didn't lower it when she slipped as silently as she could through the house to the centre, closing the doors behind her as she went. Even in relative safety of closed walls it would be stupid to think she was truly safe. War zones were like that._

_Dropping to her knees, back pressed to the nearest wall, Pidge swung her heavy pack from her back and with a practiced one-handed motions dragged it open. In seconds she was squatting with her radio in her lap, eyes darting around the sparse, dark, dirty room and jumping to ever shadow as it flickered just slightly. It was nearly night. Darkness encroached. Night-vision goggles would probably be a necessity if they took much longer than half an hour. Twenty minutes to be safe._

_Hand pressed to her earpiece, Pidge tweaked absently at the radio. The sound of static erupted once, again, then cleared into smoothness. Pidge didn't have to run a test to know she'd connected to the Mothership. The sounds of her devices, their hums, their chatter, the fuzz of static, was a language in itself._

_In a murmur she spoke. "This is DiffWitch reporting. Time eighteen-seventeen hours and counting. Reporting to the Mothership."_

_There was no response. No verbal response, anyway. Outside of the Voltron line, nothing could get through, nothing could jump on their radio, but a series of incomprehensible beeps._

_Incomprehensible to anyone but Pidge, that was._

_Beep._

_Beep-beep. Bee-beep-beep. Beep._

_Beep._

_Pidge smirked. "I'm not being vague. You have my location?"_

_Bee-beep._

_"_ _He'll be here in a minute. I can't give more than that until I can get Pi in the air. It'll relay it to you."_

_Beep. Beep. Beep-beep._

_"_ _Very mature, sir."_

_Bee-beep._

_Pidge shook her head. She didn't have a reply to that. Her heart was drumming a steady rhythm in her chest, her hands ached from holding her rifle's grip with unshakeable tension, and her ears were starting to complain for their constant sharpness. Their alertness. It was a stressful situation and no time to joke. No time at all._

_And yet the Mothership lacked the seriousness to make everything as cut, dry and sombre as it should have been. All of Voltron did for that matter._

_"_ _Pi will be up as soon as everyone checks in," Pidge said, sparing a glance over her shoulder as a scuffle sounded over her shoulder. "I'm out."_

_She'd barely lowered the radio when the door slipped open. A hulking figure in dark garb appeared, the heavy thickness of Kevlar widening his shoulders to larger than it already was. In his hands, the semi-automatic looked almost like a toy. Someone could do a lot of damage with such a weapon._

_Pidge wasn't scared. Not even for a second. She knew every paladin of Voltron so intimately that the barest glimpse of them even through the darkness of night was enough for identification. She knew him before he stepped through the door, knew him exactly and didn't need the yellow bandana that wholly gave him away to tell. "I heard you come in."_

_"_ _You were meant to," Hunk barely whispered, crossing the room on remarkably quiet feet for someone so large. "I didn't want to spook you."_

 _"_ _I don't spook."_

 _"_ _You nearly took my head of when we were training at the Garrison in second year."_

 _"_ _Yes, and that was second year."_

_They spoke but it could barely be termed speaking. Pidge heard Hunk, but not through the air across the room. The sound of his words ran through her earpiece, the frequency shifted with proximity. That was the way it worked. It was the way she and Hunk had specifically built their comms themselves. Voltron had their two lines: the close and the far. Pidge barely had to whisper for Hunk to hear her across the room. Hunk's rumbling reply was felt more than heard._

_"_ _You saw Shiro?" she asked._

_Hunk nodded with the barest tilt of his head as he dropped to a squat in the opposite corner from her. He was just below the window and made use of the proximity to rise just slightly from his haunches to crack an eye over the sill. "He should be here any second."_

_As though summoned, Shiro abruptly was. He didn't even make the scuffle of sound that Pidge admitted was minimal of Hunk and dexterous at that. One second the door into the room was closed as Hunk had left it and the next Shiro was there._

_He nodded towards Pidge, tugging his black neckerchief lower down his chin as he spared a glance for Hunk. "No trouble?"_

_Shiro spoke in the same whisper she and Hunk had moments before. It was instinctive by that point. She shook her head in reply. "Not a scratch," she said to Hunk's similar reply._

_Shiro nodded, satisfied, and took himself to a third corner of the room. Spreading out. Such was their approach. The entirety of their plan was already fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle and that was simply another part of it. Not that Pidge needed Shiro to have told her on the flight over to the town. It was instinctive to do that, too._

_No. It was obvious. Of course it was obvious._

_"_ _Pidge, can you get Pi up into the air?"_

_Pidge nodded at Shiro's command, reaching into her pack once more. "I was going to wait for Lance and Keith to check in."_

_"_ _Get it ready," Shiro said. He shifted slightly, the metal of his right arm clinking ever so faintly against the rifle as he readjusted his grip. "I want it up and sent off the second they come through the door."_

 _"_ _On it," Pidge said with a curt nod, and she extracted Pi from her pack. Triangular pyramidal in shape, Pi fit neatly into her palm and weighed barely more than a can of beans. It had been bigger once, almost makeshift, but Pidge had refined it's edges. The drone flared to life in a flutter of green light at her nudge._

_In an instant it was in the air, hovering off her palm. Small. Agile. Responsive. In Pidge's opinion, her Rover was even better than those on the market. Which, of course, it was; she, Hunk and Allura had all had a hand in its construction._

_Pi had barely risen into the air when another sound, the slightest sound that was even quieter than that Hunk had made, announced the arrival of the rest of their team. Keith and Lance flowed through the doorway a second later, tugging their own dark red and blue neckerchiefs down their chins as they nodded salute to Shiro. Naturally they were together, but Pidge didn't comment on the fact. She'd learned a long time ago that Keith and Lance had one another's backs, that they somehow seemed to know when the other needed them out in the field. One of them had likely been in a brief fix and needed saving._

_Not that they'd admit it as being saving, but…_

_Keith swept fluidly to the wall opposite Pidge, unslinging his rifle from his shoulder because, just as naturally, he'd been using his fists and combat knife rather than the much more appropriates standard-issue firearm. Lance slipped to the wall on Hunk's other side. "All here and accounted for," he whispered, and despite the quietness of his tone there was cockiness to his words. "You're welcome, everyone."_

_"_ _No one asked," Keith murmured._

 _"_ _Asked what?"_

 _"_ _For your help."_

 _"_ _And yet here I am, providing it."_

 _"_ _Or receiving it."_

_Pidge mentally tucked away the knowledge that it had been Keith jumping to Lance's rescue that time. Again. She'd have to add it to the scoreboard when they made it back to base._

_"_ _Pidge," Shiro said, and with a tip of his chin drew her eye._

_In a heartbeat Pidge's attendance of the rest of her fellow paladins was diverted. She didn't spare than a glance as she reached for Pi, touched it briefly with a finger and, as green lights darted over its surface, relayed its instructions through unspoken command and the controller on her wrist. Mental command was running effectively enough but wasn't fully functional for field use. Not yet, anyway._

_"_ _Glad I could see of my nephew before he went," Lance whispered through the earpiece. "Always good to see you, Pi."_

 _"_ _Still not a nephew," Pidge murmured, fingers tweaking at her wrist as she relayed the instructions to the attentive Pi. "Don't make assumptions."_

 _"'_ _He' sounds more suitable 'it' in my opinion," Lance pointed out. "You have to admit –"_

 _"_ _I have to nothing."_

 _"_ _I always see Pi as a bit like Pidge," Hunk murmured. "Maybe it's not a he right now?"_

 _"_ _You're hedging, Hunk," Keith said._

 _"_ _It's called being diplomatic."_

 _"_ _I think he's a he," Lance said._

 _"_ _And yet it's not your decision to make," Pidge retorted. "At all."_

 _"_ _Even though I'm the one who named him?"_

_Pidge bit back a sigh that would have been louder than her words. That much was true at least. Lance had named Pi. PAI, more correctly, for Pidge's AI, and PAI had somehow become Pi. Lance liked it. Keith shrugged and accepted it. Hunk approved because he said the resonance with his baking background appealed to him innately._

_Shiro didn't have an opinion. Or he said he didn't mind. Which he likely didn't, Pidge assumed, because Shiro was even more diplomatic than Hunk. Even in that moment he was sitting in stillness and silence, not at all getting involved._

_Or at least, Pidge could take it as such. She assumed it more likely that he was as focused as he always became on a mission. Shiro was the ultimate captain for a team that wasn't nearly large enough to warrant the name 'company', and that role entailed focus and overlooking idle conversation that shouldn't have been happening in that moment anyway. It included the smoothing of crinkles amongst the ranks of his forces but also the disregard of the trivial in critical situations._

_Which it was. Critical, that was. At that moment, in the middle of a town and barely moments after Lance had just engaged in open fire, since Keith had attacked their enemies – and likely taken out a fair few – with barely more than his fists, it was critical. Pidge never forgot that, but being with the paladins allowed her fingers to ease just slightly from their grasping tension around the grip of her rifle._

_Pi was rising and whizzing away as soon as she gave the command. Instinctively fading into the shadows, Pidge almost lost sight of it before it had even made it out of the window at Hunk's side. Then it disappeared._

_"_ _Are we waiting for a reply?" Keith asked from across the room before Pidge could do so herself. Not that Pidge would have. When it came to matters of the mission, matters that concerned them all, exchanges mostly happened between Shiro and Keith. Keith just seemed to see the situation the right way, in an instinctive way that Pidge had learned but never understood quite as well._

_Shiro shook his head. He reached for his neckerchief and tugged it up across his chin once more. "No. We're heading out."_

_"_ _And we regrouped because…?" Hunk asked. A relevant question, Pidge agreed, but unnecessary to ask._

_Shiro answered anyway. "Because there's one route to the hostage holding area. Only one. We plough through with brute strength or not at all."_

_"_ _Lovely," Lance said, shifting slightly in his crouch as though with nervous agitation. Or perhaps it was excitement. "Battering-ram style."_

 _"_ _Or bazooka style, whichever you'd prefer," Hunk said._

 _"_ _Of course you'd think bazooka."_

 _"_ _It is my favourite."_

 _"_ _If the Mothership has any directions?" Pidge asked as, alongside her friends, she rose to her feet. "If she eyeballs any change of circumstances?"_

_Shiro paused briefly, barely a heartbeat, before starting towards the door. "She knows what we're doing just as well as I do. Think of Pi as a courtesy call." Then, after a pause, "Directions will be delivered ad lib, Pidge. Copy?"_

_The Mothership knew. Of course she did. Pidge shouldn't have asked and didn't need to be told because the Mothership really was an all-seeing watcher. If anything, she'd probably known the instant they'd all regrouped, had known the angle of their attack, would know the best approach and that Shiro would instinctively know it too._

_She would likely have directions too, but Pidge doubted they'd be necessary. Shiro and the Mothership… they somehow always seemed to flow on the same wavelength._

_"_ _Copy," she said, and then they were falling out._


	9. Shiro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm so sorry for the delay in updating, everyone! Really, really sorry about that. I hope you enjoy the chapter nonetheless, and don't forget to check out the 'part 2' of the next chapter as well.

_Voltron: Year Four, Month 50/60 of rebirth_

_Paladin of Operation: BlackLion007_

* * *

Gyms, Shiro found, had a certain smell about them. He'd come to realise that much in his time, from jumping bases, from relocating to where he was assigned. Gyms always smelt the same.

It wasn't the stink of sweat, though many were thick with such a scent. It wasn't the heat of bodies straining muscles and breath's gasping from exertion. It wasn't the sharply clean scent of air conditioning that lathered the air with coolness, or the slightly metallic pungency of overworked machines, or even the worn vinyl smell of the punching bag.

Shiro wasn't quite sure what it was exactly, but after years of spending hours lost in training he'd realised he quite liked the smell. It was calming. Soothing, even. It cleared his head that was, as always, riddled with too many thoughts.

No, perhaps clearing wasn't the right word for it. When Shiro ran at a back-breaking pace on the treadmill, when he focused his attention on the feeling of his muscles straining as his hands grasped the handles of the cable machine or when he narrowed his gaze on the steady weight above him as he worked the bench press, everything was simpler. It became easier to think. Shiro had discovered this, had used this ease, countless times. Sometimes, working out at the gym and scrapping the mess of tangled thoughts from his mind was the only way he could retain his sanity.

When he was alone, that was. Only when he was alone. When Shiro was with his friends he didn't need such distractions.

That day, however, Shiro was thinking. He had a lot to be thinking about, and as he stared unblinkingly at the slightly swaying punching bag before him, his mind ran away from him. It unfolded and considered, peering at each passing idea like a bird cocking its head and following the progress of a wriggling worm.

Shiro thought about his most recent relocation. It wasn't far this time – or at least not as far as it had been before. Baltimore was barely an hour and a half by plane to New York, a little more than three hours drive by car. The trip wasn't a bad one, and on the weekends that Shiro took himself back home, to the home in New York that was less his apartment these days and more the estate of Altea, he didn't begrudge it. He couldn't, not when he got to see his friends.

He thought about his most recent deployment, the trip that had taken a little more than three weeks. A short mission, that one, for which he was grateful. The excitement of getting into the thick of things, of being able to utilise his skills to defend and protect others as much as to defend and protect himself, to graze his finger along the trigger of his rifle and feel the weight of power behind it, the constant thrum of adrenaline pumping through him that he was _doing_ something, that the situation was _dangerous_ …

All of that had faded somewhat over the years, muffled by experience and loss, but Shiro was still committed. He was still dedicated to his army life and undoubtedly always would be. He still loved what he did, the lifestyle, the deployments, the workload that was at times tiring but was always satisfying nonetheless, but even if he did love it, the youthful excitement he'd once felt for missions had dissipated. Those missions – they were a necessity. They weren't something to be expressly enjoyed.

Shiro thought about the army. He thought about his place. He thought about his promotion from soldier to officer, the brief – surprisingly brief – training he'd undergone and the strangely exalted station he'd been placed in as a result. It had been over a year since it had happened but at times Shiro still struggled to reconcile that step. He didn't feel like he was quite suited to it, even if…

"No one could be better suited than you, Shiro," Keith always said.

Lance always nodded at his side. "You've got that officer vibe, man. I've known it for years."

"More than practically anyone I know," Hunk agreed.

"I've only been a part of the army for a little while but I've got to agree with Hunk on this one," Pidge added. "You're more officer material than most officers I've come across, although don't tell McDonnell I said that. He'd get his nose out of joint and send me on suicide runs."

Allura smiled just as she always did. "You deserve it, Shiro," she said. Just like always.

Shiro wasn't sure if he did deserve it. He wasn't sure if he really was officer material, if he had the vibe, if he was suited for it. He didn't know if he should be given the responsibility of a lieutenant, let alone the captaincy he'd been provided with. He wasn't sure of any of it, and it was that which had him thinking.

He thought about the company under his command, all one hundred and fifty soldiers he'd made it his personal mission to grow familiar with. Shiro hoped he could be worthy of the trust they placed in him. He hoped. God, but he could only hope and try his best.

There were many things Shiro thought about, and some of them were constantly on the fringes of his awareness. He thought of home. Of his apartment and its emptiness when he wasn't there. Of his old home, where his father and mother still lived and he'd taken the time to visit more and more often of late. Of his mother and father themselves and how they were still hesitant at times because, "Why did you disappear for so long, Shiro?" and "You won't do it again, will you?" Long runs along Long Island Beach, nights in the city with his friends, evenings bundled behind Altean walls and sharing cocoa with those very friends like they were a group of children hiding beneath blanket forts rather than soldiers on temporary respite.

All of it, every little thing, Shiro thought about as he pounded the vinyl of the punching bag. As his strapped knuckles – because Shiro had never been one to use boxing gloves – begun to ache and his fingers to cramp from clenching into fists so long. He thought about it all and with each punch he felt himself ease. He felt himself integrate those thoughts inside himself, into something that wasn't concerning or consuming anymore. An understanding. An acceptance.

His relocation to Baltimore was a necessity that wasn't a problem because it truly wasn't _that_ far from those he cared about. From the place he thought of as home. His most recent deployment, despite his growing reluctance to fire a bullet or engage in active missions, had still been a success and he was pleased with its proceedings.

Shiro considered his captaincy and, while he might still feel unworthy of the trust placed in him at times – by his friends, by his soldiers, by his superiors – Shiro was proud to have been gifted such an opportunity. He would do his best. He _would._

Home wasn't so far away. His parents weren't as sceptical of his absences anymore. He was satisfied, even if he did regret that he spent little enough time with those friends he was closest to. That he couldn't visit New York all that often to see Allura who was the only one of them still left behind, guarding their home like a stoic sentinel before her gate. It was… good enough. Coming together. _Good_.

Only one thing Shiro couldn't quite draw to a close. One thing, and it likely wouldn't leave him alone, wouldn't stop niggling at him like a persistent bug, until he addressed it. Until that evening when he talked about it. Until –

The vinyl split. The muffled sound of the tear drew Shiro from his thoughts and, breathing heavily, he stopped. Fists raised before him, head tucked and shoulders tensed, Shiro stopped.

Another one. He'd broken another one. It had happened before countless times, and this wasn't even the first time at Baltimore he'd been guilty of such a crime. Wincing slightly, Shiro straightened and lowered his fists. It had probably been time to stop anyway.

Unhooking the punching bag from its chain – because the floor manager of the gym said he didn't have to trouble himself with moving it but Shiro _was_ troubled so he did – he started towards the equipment room. Heads turned as he passed, and Shiro nodded in return to the nods of greeting, the questioningly rising eyebrows, the knowing smiles and shakes of heads and even Donoughly's call of, "That another one, Shiro?"

Shiro spared the man a glance, feigned a heavy and regretful sigh as he raised the punching bag in his right hand. Donoughly's smile spread into a grin as he chuckled. "Only you'd be able to pick up a punching bag with one fucking hand."

"I have an advantage," Shiro said. "An unfair advantage, some might say."

"Some people," Donoughly said leaning forwards into his rowing machine with a grunt. "But not me. Not most of us, I'd wager. Don't sell yourself short, Shiro. Your arm's fucking awesome.

Shiro's arm. Shiro's arm was…

Well, Donoughly was right in that regard. His arm was 'fucking awesome'.

It had taken Shiro a long time to come to terms with his arm. The prosthetic wasn't the same as his real one had been, and not only because it was both slightly heavier and substantially stronger. It wasn't because it was made of metal and wires and thick plastic rather than skin, muscle and bone. It wasn't even because it took some time for Shiro to grow accustomed to having a second arm again at all. For barely half a year he'd been robbed of two hands, and yet suddenly having a second back was… disconcerting.

It had been strange at first. At first it had been very strange indeed, and Shiro wasn't sure if he liked that kind of strange. He wasn't sure if he wanted it either, because he still didn't think he should be given such a second chance. He'd messed up terribly, and it had cost him his arm. Out of everyone in the world, a second chance shouldn't be given to someone who had so squandered his first.

But Allura said, "You deserve it," time and time again as she'd urged him to take each step towards further rehabilitation. Shiro didn't know if he believed that but when Allura asked he couldn't pause in step. Not when she smiled at him with all of the warm encouragement she possessed. Not when the rest of his friends stood behind her with varying degrees of demand and encouragement.

"Come on, Shiro," Keith said. "You can do it. You _can_."

"I'll stick that arm on your shoulder myself if I have to," Pidge said.

"Not that I often agree with Pidge in most matters, but I'll be more than happy to help pin you down, Shiro." Lance's smile wasn't anywhere near as light-hearted as it usually was. "It's okay to want it, you know. Me out of everyone should know it's okay to want things you think you're not allowed to have."

Hunk nodded in fervent agreement. "And besides, who wouldn't want an awesome robot arm? Especially after what's going to become of it."

Shiro hadn't quite understood what Hunk meant by that. He hadn't really understood the glance Hunk had shared with Pidge either, the glance that seemed weighted with meaning and filled him with wariness that wasn't quite nervousness but very definitely something. But that didn't matter. With the encouragement of his friends urging him to reach for something and grasp that which Shiro couldn't believe himself wholly worthy of, he couldn't not.

He got the arm. He got it and, over the course of months, it became _his_ arm. And yet it was only completely his when Hunk and Pidge had finished with it.

That the two of them were incredible was something that Shiro had always known. They were both smart, far smarter than they gave themselves credit for, and such was only blatantly apparent when they'd finished with his arm. Hunk was satisfied. Pidge was, too. If nothing else, that made the end result far greater than even that which it was.

Shiro's arm was stronger than should have been possible. The grip, but also in his ability to raise objects – namely punching bags – that should have been far more of a struggle to lift. Hunk said something about a lever system, but that was all Shiro could understand from the flood of jargon that accompanied his enthusiasm. The arm was faster than should have been possible, too, and Pidge said something about rerouting the route to his central nervous system; it was something that Allura, psychologist that she was, had apparently helped out with, though Shiro couldn't quite discern her role.

Stronger, faster, more dexterous – Hunk had installed channels of lighting systems along the digits as well that Shiro could set to glowing with purple light at barely a thought and a twitch of his metallic fingers. The nails of those fingers seemed nothing if not standard, but Pidge apparently had a fetish for claws and had wired in a retraction system that turned his fingertips into weapons deadlier than knuckledusters.

Because it was a weapon. As much as a second limb, Shiro's arm had become a weapon. He didn't call it as much in front of Hunk and Pidge, for both were far too proud of their ingenuity to consider it something so trivial as 'just a weapon', but that was what it was.

Shiro recalled only too well being drawn aside by General Scott not a month into his return to active duty. The gruff older man peered at his arm thoughtfully for a long moment, frowning though not objectionably. Rather, he seemed thoughtful. That was how Shiro saw it.

He still shifted uncomfortably beneath the weight of that gaze, however, and it was a struggle not to tuck his arm behind his back.

"General?" he asked. "Can I be of any assistance, or…?"

"That arm," Scott said with a gesture towards him. "It's not going to be a problem, is it?"

"A problem, General?"

Another gesture. "I hope you're not going to abuse the privilege of your gifts, Shirogane."

Shiro was horrified at the thought of abusing the power his arm could give him, but in the same moment he felt a rush of understanding that overlaid his instinctive satisfaction for the word 'gift'. He'd never considered it in such a light before, but it truly was a gift. From his rehabilitation officers, and from Hunk and Pidge. From Allura, too. He'd been given something that not only provided him with the mobility and accessibility he'd once had but more.

Shiro's arm was special. It was 'fucking awesome'.

Shaking his head, Shiro tipped his chin respectfully. "No, General Scott. It most certainly will not be. I have no intention of abusing the privilege I've been gifted with. Not in the least."

Scott finally lifted his gaze from Shiro's arm and met his eyes. Shiro kept his expression as blank and respectful as possible. After a moment, Scott nodded. "I wouldn't expect anything less of you, Shirogane. You're a commendable soldier." Then he touched a hand to Shiro's arm in a way felt oddly affectionate from a general to a low-ranking soldier. "I just had to ask. Protocol, you understand."

"Of course, General," Shiro said, even if he was a little disconcerted by Scott's words. Or more correctly, by the fact that he'd said them at all. That the _General_ had taken the time to talk to Shiro. That he knew who Shiro was enough to know about his arm, the gift from his friends. That he'd _spoken_ to _…_

That he'd recognised Shiro's fucking awesome arm and had let him keep it. Shiro didn't know what he would have done if the General had an objection to it, but he was relieved to have its worth acknowledged and accepted.

It was with that ensuing satisfaction, the appreciation for his arm and all that it could do, that Shiro turned from Donoughly and continued across the room. Weaving through the machines and fellow gym-goers, he slipped into the equipment cupboard. The hand on duty that day was tucked inside, rearranging the stacks of weights and medicine balls, gloves and speed bags and rows of kick shields, into neat orderliness. He was a burly man, and Shiro recognised him as he straightened and turned at his entrance.

David Davis. Shiro liked the man and knew him well enough after only a little time in Baltimore. He liked him even more after he'd introduced himself with an exasperated, "And yes, I have one of the most unfortunate names on the planet. If you'd like to laugh I won't judge so long as you get it out of your system all in one bout." David had grinned the whole way through his little speech.

At the sight of Shiro, he was grinning in an instant once more. A wide man, wide face and wide smile, Shiro really did like him. They'd gone out for drinks more than once simply for companionability's sake. David's eyes dropped to the punching back at Shiro's side an instant later and he quirked an eyebrow, said, "Why are you bringing -?" before he cut himself off. Both eyebrows rose more incredulously as his gaze drew back to Shiro. "Another one?"

Shiro dipped his chin. "I'm sorry."

"For?"

"Splitting another bag. It was an accident, I can assure you. I just lost myself in –"

"You're arm is freaking insane," David interrupted him. When Shiro glanced back up at him he was grinning broadly once more as he shook his head. "That's incredible."

"Sorry."

"For?" David repeated.

"Splitting another bag."

"I can't help but feel this conversation is going in circles," David said, stepping towards Shiro and holding out a hand for the punching bag. "No harm done, Shiro. Seriously, don't sweat it. If anything, I think your dedication out on the floor gives the rest of those yahoos inspiration."

With a grunt – because despite Shiro's unspoken suggestion that he carry the bag to wherever David wanted it, his offer was waved aside – David hauled the bag onto his shoulder and wavered across the room. He dumped it in the far corner. "I'll have Sandra take a look at it tomorrow morning when she comes in."

"Sorry," Shiro said again.

"Stop apologising," David said, flicking a hand at Shiro before he dropped it onto his hip. "Base covers all damage expenses. It's not my problem."

"Thanks, David," Shiro said, and met David's smile with his own as he glanced towards him. "Did you perhaps want to head down to the bar later tonight? When do you finish up?"

"Around eight," David said. With a sniff, he reached for another stack of kick shields and dragged them across the room. Rearranging? Shiro couldn't fathom why. "That'd be great, though."

Shiro nodded. He wouldn't have been able to make it much before then anyway. "I'll see you nine maybe?"

"Sure. See you. And I won't forgive you if you invite Flakey along."

Turning from the equipment room, Shiro spared a final smile over his shoulder. "You know, I believe you're relationship would be far better if you referred to him by his real name rather than Flakey."

"No repairing what was never there, Shiro," David called after him.

Shaking his head, Shiro took himself back through the gym. Heads nodded at him as he passed once more and he paused more than once to speak to a friendly face before slipping into the change rooms.

Voltron was active. When Shiro climbed from his shower, when he pulled his phone from his gym bag and sat for a moment on the steam-damp wooden bench, his screen was a mess of notifications in green and pink and blue. Smiling fondly, he clicked the image of interwoven lions into roaring life.

For Shiro, Voltron had always been special. It was special for all of the paladins too, he knew. It was different when it was just theirs, just the home built by desperate hands upon the remains of a chatroom torn asunder, and yet in many ways that only made even more special. To Shiro, that specialness became something profound when it covered the distance between himself and his friends, some far flung further north and west than himself. It covered the distance and made them feel…

Close.

_DiffWizard: You're trying to tell me you don't regret it?_

_DiffWizard: Not even a little bit?_

_Sharpshooter18: Nope. Not for a second._

_DiffWizard: Liar. It doesn't hold relevance anymore. Makes you look kind of stupid._

_Sharpshooter18: On the contrary, now that I'm no longer eighteen it's even more relevant. My eighteenth year will always hold great importance to me._

_DiffWizard: You say that like you've only just turned nineteen._

_DiffWizard: That was years ago. You're practically an old man now._

_DiffWizard: Cradle snatcher._

_PrincessOfAltea: A cradle snatcher? Of who, exactly?_

_PrincessOfAltea: Sharpshooter, have you been fooling around without us knowing? With younger boys or girls at that?_

_Sharpshooter18: WHAT?!_

_Sharpshooter18: NO!_

_DiffWizard: Ah, the defensiveness. It wasn't what I was insinuating, Princess, but maybe you've struck gold._

_Sharpshooter18: What are you_

_Sharpshooter18: I can't believe you'd_

_Sharpshooter18: Would you just_

Shiro smiled as he flicked through a succession of similar phrases, shaking his head. Pidge and Allura had grown close in the years that Shiro and the rest of the paladins had moved from New York City for the army and before Pidge too had enlisted. When Shiro considered it from an onlookers perspective, they were almost like brother and sister.

All of them were as such a lot of the time for that matter. Pidge and Lance bantered like they'd known one another for years while Lance and Hunk had the sort of friendship that didn't usually arise except in those who had known been friends since childhood. Pidge and Keith had an understanding between them, a mutual, considering intelligence they seemed to bond over, while Keith and Hunk had a stranger one that seemed more content with comfortable silences than discussion.

And Shiro fit in the midst of it. As the older brother. As the friend. As the comrade, the upperclassman, the senior who had been in the army for years and was more than happy to share his experience with his beloved juniors. He and Allura had always been close, and in a lot of ways they still were, despite the distance.

The sound of voices echoed from the showers and for a moment Shiro glanced upwards, distracted. Then he dropped his gaze once more. His smile widened as he read.

_Sharpshooter18: First off, shut the hell up, you two. You're both devils._

_DiffWizard: Remember the good old days when he used to try and flirt with you, Princess?_

_PrincessOfAltea: Only with fondness of a time long past._

_Sharpshooter18: To correct your misunderstanding, Diff, I am not a cradle snatcher. Red is less than a year younger than me. We were in the same fucking year in high school. That's not cradle snatching._

_Sharpshooter18: And shut up again. I have feelings._

_DiffWizard: Really? Are you sure about that?_

_PrincessOfAltea: Well, he and Red have been together for quite some time._

_Sharpshooter18: Stop mocking me. I'm trying to be poignant here. And thank you for your backup, Princess._

_PrincessOfAltea: You're welcome._

_DiffWizard: I feel betrayed._

_Sharpshooter18: Secondly, no, Diff, I'm not an old man. And I DO still like my number eighteen._

_PrincessOfAltea: I do too, truly. It serves as a reminder as to when we all first met :)_

_DiffWizard: Alright._

_DiffWizard: I'll give you that._

_DiffWizard: It is kind of nice to have the reminder. If I can remember how old you are._

_Sharpshooter18: Have I ever told you how much your insults get to me?_

_DiffWizard: Why, no. Never. Do tell._

_Sharpshooter18: Not at all._

For a few more minutes, Shiro scrolled through the latest conversation. Keith and Hunk were absent, and gradually Lance and Pidge disappeared too until, at the bottom of the conversation, only Allura remained.

As if on cue, as soon as he reached her final pink message, his phone buzzed with an incoming message. Or not a message at all, really. Shiro clicked on the writhing silhouette of the lion that sprung into the centre of his screen, the request for a video chat.

It wasn't unusual these days. Not anymore. Shiro knew he and Allura weren't the only ones to speak as such when there were only two of them in the Voltron chatroom, yet it was with her that he most often found himself seeing. Her face appeared in the centre of the screen.

Allura was a beautiful person. Shiro had always acknowledged as much. Even when she was frail and pale in her sickliness she'd been beautiful. Now, despite the smallness of her image on his phone screen, that beauty glowed radiantly, her sharp colours of contrast diminished none. The smile Allura greeted him with was even more blinding.

"Shiro," she said warmly, a hand fluttering at the camera. "It's lovely to see you. I was – oh, I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Shiro asked.

"I seem to have caught you at a bad time," she said, pointedly averting her gaze.

For a moment, Shiro was unsure as to what she was talking about. Then he spared a glance down at himself and he felt his smile grow amused. "Ah. I'm sorry. Don't worry, I'm wearing pants."

Only as Allura had said it did Shiro realise that she'd perhaps indeed caught him at a bad time. Or what could be construed as bad timing, because Shiro wasn't particularly modest about such things. Neither was Allura for that matter. She bore no embarrassment for her supposed mistake – and possibly because it wasn't the first time they'd caught one another in something of a compromising situation through the chat.

Hunk would have been delighted to hear it. He did have some strange speculations about the nature of Shiro and Allura's relationship. Speculations, Shiro would admit, that weren't entirely inaccurate.

Rising from his seat, Shiro muttered a word of wait and rummaged in his gym bag for his shirt. Then, tugging it over his head, he picked up his phone and made his way from the change room. "I'm sorry about that," he said, passing into the reception hall of the gym.

Allura had turned back to the screen with her wide smile once more. "Not to worry. It was entirely my fault."

"Not really."

"Maybe just a little bit."

"I don't think so."

"I was the one who video-called you."

"Yes, but I picked up regardless of my circumstances."

"I know, but I –" Allura paused. In a heartbeat her smile had shifted into a smirk. "We were doing it again."

Shiro paused in step briefly and blinked. Then he snorted, shaking his head. "Keith would be so disappointed with us."

"I don't know why it bothers him so much when our conversations ensue as such. Is it the excess of apologies?"

"I think it's more correct to think that Keith simply dislikes useless conversations cycling in continuing uselessness. Lance does always claim he can be overly direct."

"I think he might be right about that," Allura said with a nod. "Notice Lance speaks of such with more fondness than exasperation, though."

"I have noticed that."

They chuckled together and Shiro picked up his feet once more and started from the gym. A glance around himself, around the parking lot and to catch sight of any passing cars, and he started in the direction of the base. In his most recent relocation, he'd decided to live in the appointed housing rather than taking advantage of the benefits of rent assistance. It was simply easier to be closer to work. For that evening especially so.

He and Allura chatted as he walked, and he didn't question why she'd called him. They did that sometimes. Their video chats – the chats Shiro had with every paladin – were just easy. Comforting. Shiro often found himself seeking solace in his friends when he had a moment of downtime or, as appeared to be in the case of Allura from the way she clattered around in her lab, while engaged in idle work.

Easy. Comforting.

"I have to admit to being curious, though," Allura said just as Shiro took himself along the footpath towards the double doors of the home base complex. "Regarding what you wanted to talk to everyone about this evening. Not that I have a problem with group chats, but your invitations did seem rather formal."

Shiro pressed his lips together for a moment. "I can't tell you even if you ask me again."

"Can't you really?" Allura teased. "Even though I've practically guessed already?"

Biting back a smile, Shiro raised a pointed eyebrow at her. "I haven't specified anything."

"Yes, but you haven't denied my speculations either. And a meeting with all of us to 'ask something important, if you don't mind' – really, Shiro, do you even have to ask?" Shaking her head, Allura dropped her chin onto the heel of her palm, fingers curling up her cheek. "We all adore you."

"I wouldn't let them hear you say that if I was you," Shiro said.

"Keith admits it," Allura said.

"Keith is the exception."

"And Hunk."

"Hunk adores everyone."

"Lance makes jests in any kind of heartfelt moments simply because he's awkward and Pidge vehemently denies feeling affection most of the time, but they do, Shiro." Allura's smile grew less teasing and more sincere. "I've asked them. We all do."

Shiro fell silent for a moment. The slight ache in his chest wasn't bad in the slightest. "Thank you," he finally murmured.

"Do you think we should tell them all?"

"Tell them?"

"About us?"

Shiro closed his eyes for a moment and felt his smile unfurl. "Maybe," he said.

Passing into the complex was a walk into contained air conditioning and minimalistic personalisation. The buildings themselves was mostly secondary, an addition to the original that held creature comforts Shiro acknowledged as not being expected of the army. Or at least he'd acknowledged it after Lance voiced his surprise over the amenities.

"It's actually really liveable," he said when he'd first spoken of his quarters.

Shiro remembered the equal surprise that played across Keith's face at his words. "You expected otherwise?"

"… no."

"You did. You really did. What, did you think you'd be living in a cell for the duration of your army life?"

Lance shifted slightly, almost awkwardly, before he pointedly dropped his chin onto Keith's shoulder in the way Shiro had noticed he did when he tried to avoid Keith's stare. "I… no."

Keith hadn't quite smiled at that but it was a near thing. "You're a masochist, then."

"What? Why?"

"Because you signed up anyway."

Shiro often recalled that discussion. He remembered it each time Pidge playfully brought up Lance's supposedly 'masochistic tendencies', or when Allura asked each of them what their new residences were like. He remembered it when he stepped through the double doors of the complex and started in the direction of the education building, towards the modest lecture room he'd requested temporary use of for the evening.

Being a captain did have its benefits.

The hallways were long but brightly lit, the floors of polished vinyl reflecting the fluorescent lighting overhead and scattering off the pale walls. The shadows of encroaching evening were chased away like dogs with their tails tucked between their legs, and despite the fact that the rooms Shiro passed were largely empty, the personalisation minimal in every region, it didn't feel like a ghost town. There was a very distinct 'lived in' feeling to the air; a door left half open with the light from within flooding out, venetian blinds only half drawn, a stack of papers slightly scattered upon a desk.

Allura commented, as she was want to do, on each glimpse she caught from the peripheral camera angle as they passed. Shiro didn't quite know how she managed it when her attention appeared to be mostly focused upon whatever was in her line of sight yet outside of Shiro's. Something that made metallic clinks as she fiddled with it.

"Where is this, then?" She asked, not even looking at the camera as Shiro turned down the final hallway towards the lecture room. "I've never seen this part of the complex before."

"It's the Ed Ward," Shiro explained, pausing outside of room three-three-five. "They have projectors on every wall."

"Smartboards," Allura said.

"I'm sorry?"

"Pidge always corrects me when I call them projectors because apparently 'that's not even what they're called'."

Shiro laughed as he pushed the door open. The room within was dark but not gloomy, and a flick of a light switch drove that darkness into non-existence, replacing it with a blinding glare. "You've been told."

"Many a time," Allura said, lips twitching as she glanced up at the camera. "You're in a lecture room, then?"

"Yes."

"Why? Wait, it's because of –"

"I like having everyone on their own screen," Shiro explained, and Allura nodded in clear indication that she'd already anticipated his words. He shrugged. "It feels more real that way."

Shiro couldn't explain why, but he'd always liked for each of his friends to have their own space rather than to be squished into the boundaries of the narrow screen of his phone. Maybe it was simply because, having the necessity to turn towards each voice, it felt more as though they were there with him rather than a state or three away.

"Perfectly understandable," Allura said, straightening from fiddling with whatever she'd been doing. She trained her attention back onto the camera. "Shall I leave you to it, then?"

"You mean for all of the two minutes it takes for me to set up the room and call you again?" Shiro chuckled.

Allura smiled toothily. "Yes, that. And the fact that Coran's just arrived with some tea."

"I wouldn't want to keep you, then."

"I shall chug like my life depends upon it."

"Chugging tea? That seems like something of an oxymoron, doesn't it?"

"It does indeed," Allura laughed. Then, with a final smile, she disappeared from the screen.

Shiro made good his words and hastened to set up the room. The hum of computers thrummed to life, the projectors – smartboards – blinking into wakefulness, and within moments, less than those two minutes, Shiro was clicking into Voltron on the primary computer. Each board flickered into blackness, Voltron's lions surging forth in a flash of colours.

_BlackLion007 has entered the chatroom._

_BlackLion007: Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for making the time to talk tonight. I know it's a lot to ask of everyone for their busy schedules._

_BlackLion007: Whenever you're free, give me a call :)_

Then Shiro waited.

Keith was the first to arrive. With a momentary flash of a red lion's silhouette in centre screen, Shiro clicked the request open and, in a tap of directions, pulled the connecting video chat onto one of the projectors. Keith's face blinked at him with the usual split second of disorientation before he was offering Shiro his usual small smile.

"Hello Shiro," he said. "How are you?"

"Very well, thank you," Shiro replied. "How are you holding up yourself? Wait, are you using a computer?" Shiro squinted slightly, because the view Keith presented was very distinctly different to that of a phone camera's perspective. Too high. Too wide. Was he in a communal room, perhaps? One of the offices? It was relatively late so he likely would have had to get permission.

Keith shrugged. "My CO likes me. He got me permission when I put in a request for it."

There. Shiro should have expected it of Keith. "Of course he likes you. You're fantastic."

Keith raised an eyebrow for a moment before his small smile arose once more. "I think you're a little biased."

"Biased?" Shiro said, biting back a smile. "How so?"

"We're all biased towards our paladins."

That at least was true. Or at least Shiro suspected it was to a degree. He didn't disbelieve his own words, however. Keith was fantastic, and not just as a soldier, though that was likely what his CO found most significant. Keith was a fighter, was driven, was utterly dedicated and as stubborn as a mule when he wanted something. He might dig his heels in a little when he received questionable orders, and Shiro had heard he'd gotten into a spot of bother more than once for just that reason, but it hardly mattered. Not really, and not when it hadn't caused any undue difficulties.

Not when, hopefully, after tonight and after Shiro had spoken to his friends, Keith wouldn't have to take orders from anyone in such a manner again. Shiro had grown close to Keith over the years and in many ways felt perhaps the closest to him and Allura. It wasn't only because he'd lived with Keith for several months after Keith had turned eighteen. He had a good head on his shoulders with a good ear to bounce ideas off.

Shiro would need that. He'd need that if his hopes for the arising conversation were to be fulfilled.

Before Shiro could reply to Keith's words, there was an unintelligible grumble of some kind of discontent before Keith was nearly thrown from his seat by Lance's sudden appearance at his side. Or he would have been had Lance's bowling into him not included a looping of an arm around Keith's neck to hold him in place. Typically, because Lance always moved with speed and force.

Lance grinned widely at the screen in greeting. "Evening, Lion King. How goes it on the other side of the world?"

"The other side of the world?" Keith asked, peering at Lance sidelong with a dubiously raised eyebrow. He didn't shrug Lance's arm off, however. He never did. "He's in Baltimore, Lance."

"That's practically a different planet."

"You thought Vermont was a different planet too. Is anywhere but New York City not alien soil to you?"

"There's nothing wrong with loving home."

"I never said there was."

"You insinuated."

Shiro couldn't get a word in. He often couldn't when Keith and Lance spoke as they did, or when Lance and Pidge got into one of their exchanges, or when Pidge started talking to Allura in that way they'd developed that was somehow so impossible to interrupt. Shiro didn't mind. He kind of loved simply listening to his friends. He only ever forcibly inserted himself when it was absolutely necessary. When the banter got just a little too sharp-edged.

For Keith and Lance, real sharpness so rarely arose that Shiro barely considered his restraining contributions necessary. The two of them were constantly bantering, but it was impossible not to see the adoration radiating from both of them when they glanced at one another. Years together and it was still as strong as ever.

Allura thought it was sweet. She said that such fondness should be strived for by anyone in a relationship. Shiro tended to agree with her.

He was quite contentedly listening to his friends in their exchange, simply revelling in their presence however solely virtual it was, when a loud chime preceded the sudden arrival of Hunk's yellow lion. Turning, clicking the necessary directions into the computer, Shiro glanced over his shoulder towards a second board to behold Hunk's beaming grin and waving hand.

"Shiro!" he exclaimed. "I feel like I haven't seen you in ages. Is your fringe getting longer?"

Shiro's smile spread fondly once more but before he could get a word in Keith spoke. "It meets regulations."

"Unfortunately," Lance added. When Shiro glanced towards him he was pouting as he planted a hand atop Keith's cropped head. Keith's raised his eyebrow once more. "I regret. I have so much regret."

"Yes, we know. You've said it enough times." Pidge's voice sounded a moment later, and Shiro glanced back towards Hunk's screen. Pidge and Hunk shifted to accommodate one another in their screen; as were Keith and Lance, the physical proximity of their bases allowed for meeting rather than simply speaking through Voltron.

Pidge's hands were occupied with something metallic and flashing. "Hello, everyone."

"Hello… DiffWizard?" Shiro asked.

Pidge nodded. "Hey, BlackLion. Nice to see you again."

Shiro smiled in satisfaction. He didn't think it a game to deduce which gender Pidge was at any time but it did feel somewhat gratifying to have made the correct deduction. For deduction it was; Shiro was like Allura in that he didn't view Pidge so much by his genders but as _Pidge_ , but it was clearly important to Pidge himself.

It was something of a giveaway whenever they spoke on Voltron, the pseudonym Pidge used indicating his pronoun preferences. Yet Shiro thought that, after so many years, he might just be getting the hang of it a little better. Pidge never acted deliberately or openly differently to Shiro's eyes, but there was something just a little innately distinct when he was DiffWizard rather than DiffWitch. The way he held himself. A slight shift in mannerisms that Shiro wouldn't have noticed had he not been keeping such a close eye out for it.

Or that, for whatever reason, when Pidge was fiddling with computers he was most often a boy, yet while caught in the throughs of rigorous military life was more inclined more frequently a girl. Shiro wondered if Pidge realised. He wondered if it was simply a coincidence.

Once more he didn't get a chance to get a word in before his friends were speaking in a rapid-fire exchange. It was all he could do to shift his gaze between each of them as they spoke.

"Hey, what exactly do you mean by that, Pidge," Lance asked.

"By what?"

"I've said what enough times?"

"I think he's referring to the hair fetish," Hunk said. Then he hastily held up a placating hand. "Which there is absolutely nothing wrong with."

"Hey," Lance exclaimed, straightening in his seat. "I don't have a hair –"

"Totally understandable, really,' Keith interrupted contemplatively. "I mean, you were a barber."

Lance paused for all of a heartbeat before a grin split his face once more and he pressed a kiss to Keith's cheek. "I love you."

"Thank you. I love you too."

"You're sickeningly sweet, you two," Pidge muttered, gaze still upon whatever he was working on.

"I think you're sweet too," Hunk all but crooned.

"Thank you," Lance said. "And not you, Pidge, because don't think I can't hear that sarcasm."

"You can? I thought you had a bad ear for sarcasm."

"No, that's only for mine," Keith said. "Still."

"But he's getting better," Hunk said.

"That's right. I _am_."

"It's not really that hard to interpret."

"Hey, just because you and Keith have a weird language thing going on –"

"A weird language thing?"

"Kind of like with you and Hunk."

"Oh my god, do we really? Lance, do we have a weird language thing too?"

"Damn right we do, buddy."

Shiro was quite content to only listen once more. There were times where he found himself as embroiled in the conversation as each of the rest of them, and other times when even he led the conversation – usually when he spoke to Allura or Keith as it were, for Lance, Hunk and Pidge more often than not flowed on a different wavelength to himself. He didn't mind being only an observer this time, however. It was simply nice to be with his friends, even if he did feel a touch of regret well within him that each of them were accompanied by at least one other paladin in the flesh.

It was as Pidge finally looked up from whatever he was doing at a particularly profound jostling from Hunk and started brandishing what appeared to be a screwdriver at the screen that Shiro noticed Allura's arrival. He'd missed it and wouldn't have been surprised if she'd appeared quite some time before he had noticed. Clicking her pink lion to life, she appeared in the centre of her screen at a distance as Shiro had come to recognise was the camera stationed above the smartboard in her lab. Her gaze immediately jumped between their friends, lips quivering slightly. They two were alike in that they both enjoyed listening as much as speaking.

 _Hello again,_ Shiro mouthed, and Allura, gaze drawn towards him, widened her smile further. She raised a hand and fluttered her fingers at him in greeting, but otherwise gave no indication of her presence. Shiro could understand that. At times it was nice to simply immerse himself in the voices of his friends.

The rest of the paladins had somehow deteriorated into a discussion of their past Easter when they'd all managed to be given leave simultaneously. Something about the validity of the Easter Bunny and its analogy to a real person from what Shiro could discern, though he couldn't determine where the segue had been made. As such, no one appeared to notice Allura had arrived. They didn't notice for minutes, in fact, and even then not until Coran appeared in the screen at Allura's side and exclaimed in loud greeting. "Ah! Hello, everyone! It's been a while since I've seen all of your beautiful faces."

As one, every single face turned towards him and the Easter Bunny was dropped on its head.

"Allura! Coran!" Lance all but shouted, leaning into his screen and dragging Keith with him, arm still looped around his neck. "I didn't even see you."

"Hey, guys," Hunk said with his toothy grin stretching widely once more. "It's so good to see you again. And Coran, you have pastry in your moustache. I really hope you're not being unfaithful to the Balmeran Bakehouse."

"Coran would _never_ be so unfaithful," Pidge said, though his smirk spoke otherwise. "Right, Coran?"

"Never," Coran said with a fervent nod. "And it's not pastry at all, Hunk. I'm simply growing prematurely grey."

"That you'd even use that as an excuse…" Allura said with a shake of her head. Then she was turning her smile upon each of them, a slightly disjointed experience given that she was simply shifting her gaze across the screen. She settled her attention on Shiro last. "Hello, everyone. You're all looking well."

"You'd likely have heard if we weren't," Keith said, not unkindly.

"I'd like to think so, yes."

"Well, there was the incident with the stubbed toe yesterday," Lance said.

"You split a nail, didn't you?" Hunk asked, and there wasn't a hint of teasing in his tone. He actually sounded concerned.

"You broke a nail?" Pidge asked with a snort.

" _Split_ ," Lance emphasised. "I _split_ a nail. It sounds far more hard core."

"I'm not sure hard core turn-a-phrase, there, Lance," Shiro couldn't help but say, speaking up for the first time since they'd all arrived.

"Don't worry, Shiro," Pidge said. "It validates his masculinity."

"My masculinity needs no such validation, thank you," Lance replied with a sniff. "Just ask Keith."

"You really don't need to," Keith said flatly.

Pidge cringed. "Believe me, I have no such intentions."

"Is this what we're talking about tonight?" Hunk asked, leaning forwards slightly into his seat as Pidge dropped his attention down to – it must have been a computer. Or something. "I didn't realise it needed so much discussion, but… Shiro?"

"Oh, I doubt that," Coran said before Shiro could reply. His hands rose to the lapels of his jacket as he rocked on his heels. "It's surely something of importance, isn't it, Shiro? We rarely hold a meeting with all paladins unless it's something important."

"Or someone's birthday," Pidge said.

"Which is important," Hunk said, poking Pidge's shoulder.

"Or it's been a while and someone just wants to host a communal chat," Keith said.

"Which is also important," Lance said, poking Keith just as Hunk had to Pidge.

"I never said it wasn't."

"You insinuated."

"You seem to think I'm insinuating a lot tonight."

"We're getting a little distracted, I think," Allura said, statement of fact rather than reprimand driving her words. Their conversations often deteriorated into such. "Shiro? Would you like to reveal the incentive behind your request to meet tonight?"

Allura knew. Shiro knew even without her expectant gaze settling upon him from the slight quirk to her lips and the twitch of her eyebrow. He apparently wasn't the only one to realise either.

"You already know, don't you?" Lance said with a slight frown.

"I'm getting those vibes too," Hunk said as Keith and Pidge nodded in turn.

Allura didn't reply continued to gaze expectantly at Shiro. Her smile widened just slightly as she tilted her head towards him. Slowly, all attention drew back towards Shiro. Or he felt it as much. It was a little hard to tell through cameras.

"Allura does know," Shiro said. "Because she guessed."

"Expectedly," Pidge said. "She's smart like that."

"Thank you, Pidge," Allura said. "Shiro?"

A pause. Shiro wasn't quite sure how to go about this, how he should approach the matter or whether his expectations of his friends' responses was accurate or not, but he had to ask. He wasn't certain of anything, but…

"Just tell us, Shiro," Keith said. Direct as always, there wasn't chiding in Keith's tone but expectancy. "Whatever it is isn't a problem, I'm sure. You don't need to be nervous."

Trust, that Shiro's friends would realise he was nervous even before he did.

Swallowing, Shiro bowed his head in acknowledgement. Then he did just that. He just told them. "I had a meeting with General Scott the other day. He called me into his office and we discussed a certain matter that has apparently been playing upon his mind since Christmas."

"General Scott?" Hunk asked. "He's the one that complimented your arm, wasn't he?"

"I don't know if complimented is the right word for just letting him keep it," Pidge said, though he appeared satisfied nonetheless.

"He is," Shiro said with a nod. "And he has a further proposition. If you're all in agreement, I have every intention of taking him up on his offer." He paused, and it was a testament to how much they respected him – perhaps a little excessively in Shiro's opinion – that they all waited silently for him to continue. The paladins of Voltron weren't known for holding their tongues.

Shiro respected them just as much in turn. It was why he spoke to them in the most direct manner he could, without dampening the reality of the situation. "General Scott has asked me to lead a Special Forces squad. A particularly unique squad. And he's asked if you could all be a part of it."

There was a pause. For a long second no one spoke to respond. Keith blinked. Lance's eyebrows twitched before jumping high. Pidge lowered his screwdriver and Hunk's eyes widened noticeably.

Allura's smile widened too. Only Coran, glancing her way, seemed to notice.

Then everything erupted.

"Wait, what?"

"Seriously? You're actually being serious?"

"The general asked you to –"

"So you'll be leading a special forces squad, Shiro? You will be?"

"Fantastic, you so deserve –"

"- can't believe –"

"Wait, they actually want us to –?"

Shiro let their words wash over him in torrents of surprise, excitement, enthusiasm, confusion and disbelief. He found himself smiling as he turned to each friend in turn.

He wouldn't go into the details. Not the unnecessary details that they didn't need to hear. Shiro wouldn't tell them about how General Scott, who did indeed appear to have taken an interest in him after the reality of his fucking awesome arm was exposed to the world, had drawn him aside. How he'd skirted the issue briefly, asking how Shiro considered he was handling his captaincy. How he'd made sure, made _absolutely sure_ , that Shiro didn't think it was something above and beyond him.

Shiro was dubious because he was always dubious when responsibility was placed upon him. He'd failed on a mission once already and it always left him cautious of future failure. Yet his company relied upon him. More than that, his friends had, for years, and they'd put their trust in him. Regardless of how concerned Shiro was for proving that trust and confidence unwarranted, he would try his best. He _did_ try his best.

Shiro wouldn't tell his friends about how he'd accepted Scott's suggestion after an hour of discussion. How he'd accepted his offer and listened for another three hours to what the general intended for the 'highly covert team of commandos', of the equally covert missions of the higher-up's choosing. Not yet anyway.

He wouldn't tell them of how the general had paused for a moment after Shiro had asked who his team would be and Scott had told him. He'd told him of the evidence that he'd seen from what was little more than a backyard army games over Christmas when Shiro and his fellow paladins had thoroughly beaten every other makeshift team at their own game, despite being barely five members to their own while most had at least twice that many.

None of them needed to know that. They didn't need to know, or at least not yet. Even so, Shiro would tell them one day. Eventually. He would tell them how Scott had pulled out each of their files and analysed them before Shiro's eyes, highlighting why he considered them to be capable of working cohesively together and covering a broad expanse of bases with each of their individual skillsets.

Keith was a close-combat specialist, a fierce fighter with artillery as much as his hands, and had already proved his worth with intelligence comprehension and silent missions.

Lance had a strategic mind that wasn't at first apparent for his rambunctious attitude yet made itself known in the solemnity of field attitude. More than that, he had a sniper's eye that wasn't lessened in near-sighted firing. Shiro bit his tongue on instinctively stating the relevance of his Voltron name. Funny, how things worked out like that.

Hunk was a heavy-weapons soldier. The strength of his shoulders, his endurance, and his persistence in his own field missions had drawn the eye of his CO. But more than that, he was an rudimentarily-trained engineer with a knack for the trade, and Scott had murmured his approval of his specialist knowledge. That it would 'be useful' in an emergency operation.

And Pidge… Scott had for a moment paused at Pidge's file. "She's young," he said, and Shiro had to bite back the instinctive reprimand that arose within him because Scott didn't necessarily know Pidge was a _she_ right at that moment, did he? "It might be untoward of me to think she's as capable and suitable as they rest of you, but from what I've seen…" He shook his head as he drew his eyes along the papers in front of him. "She's good. Very good. The Comms team down south had nothing but admiration for her. She's young, but…"

"She is," Shiro said, a little stiltedly. "But she's also exceptional. I've seen her at work myself, General."

Scott raised his gaze and met Shiro's eyes. He nodded slowly. "Yes, I'll wager you have. You five – you work well together. You work together almost too well, Shiro. Have you trained as a team before?"

What could Shiro say to that? That no, they hadn't trained together but they thought together? That they were close in a way that Shiro had never been with anyone else in the world before? That an operation, even on of the casual, playful kind that they'd engaged in over Christmas, was conducted like a well-oiled machine because Shiro simply _knew_ where they'd be, how they'd respond, that he could rely on them for anything as he couldn't quite do so with other soldiers?

Shiro didn't say any of that but nodded nonetheless. "We've known one another for some time. And we've… worked together. Perhaps proximity and understanding has rubbed off?"

Scott shook his head once more. "Incredible," he muttered, and for a moment Shiro was surprised to hear the word. Such compliments weren't freely given, in the army or by generals. But then Scott repeated himself. "It's incredible, is what it is. And we'd be fools not to make use of it. I don't know where you've cropped up from, you lot, but you're something special."

Shiro felt a flood of warmth squeeze his chest, pride welling within him. "Thank you, General. We'll do our best as you would have it of us."

"I'll bet you will," Scott said. "And you'll be the one to lead them, Captain Shirogane."

Shiro blinked. He'd already been told as much, but clarifying that it would be his friends made it different somehow. "Just them, General?"

"Just them?"

"Just the five of us?"

Scott's lips twitched slightly and for a moment Shiro could only stare, surprised. Scott wasn't one to smile – or at least he wasn't as far as Shiro could discern. "For now. Yes."

Shiro didn't voice any of that discussion to his friends through the smartboards, but he spoke nonetheless. To the unwavering attention of all around him, Shiro spoke of the Special Forces squad that Scott had asked them to be a part of. How they'd regroup to undergo specialist training and from then be assigned exclusive missions. That this was _special_ , and that they would be a _team_.

He didn't think he spoke with any inclination to sway reluctant minds, but there was such immediate agreement that Shiro had to wonder. Such enthusiasm. Such excitement.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Lance all but shouted once more, smile spreading. "This is insane."

"Insane in an awesomely good way," Hunk said, grinning so wide that his entire face seemed nothing but a smile. "Shiro, man, this is… this is so…"

"We'd get to work together," Keith asked. He'd edged forwards in his seat, and though he wasn't smiling, his intent, unblinking gaze was dancing with an almost feverish light. "All of us. All five of us. We'd get to work –"

"All of us?" Pidge asked. He'd raised a hand to the top of whatever monitor his and Hunk's camera was embedded in. "You mean even…?"

"Even you, Pidge," Shiro said. "Of course you as well."

"Even though I'm, like, two years younger and less experienced than everyone else?"

"Experience is important, Pidge, but not everything," Coran said. "Why, when I was your age I –"

"Even then," Shiro said, overriding Coran. He didn't usually like interrupting people, but the desperate plea on Pidge's eyes demanded a response. "You're a part of our team, Pidge. You all would be. Or at least," he paused and glanced towards each of them in turn once more, "if you wanted to be."

"Is that even a question?" Keith said immediately.

"Shiro," Lance said overloudly. "We'd get. To work. Together."

"This is the best thing that could ever happen to us," Hunk said, and for a moment he buried his face in his hands. Only briefly, however, before he was raising his chin and baring his wide grin once more. "I can't believe they'd want all of us. It seems too perfect."

"It seems just right," Pidge said a little fiercely. His smile was small but after his previous words he appeared to have grown decisive. "Like it should be."

"All of us together," Lance said, and the way he shifted in his seat was almost an excited bounce.

"All of us," Keith said with a nod. "Or almost."

Shiro knew he wasn't the only one to draw his attention towards Allura and Coran. Through the buzz of excitement that welled within him, the excitement that they were _doing_ this, that it was _actually happening_ as Shiro hadn't quite believed when Scott had told him, the absence had a slight dampening effect.

Though not from Allura's. Apparently she felt none of the regret that the rest of them did. Lips drawn into a wide smile, she folded her arms across her chest. "Just because I'm not part of your field forces – or part of the army for that matter – doesn't mean I'm not a part of your team." She tipped her head towards Coran. "We both are."

"Most certainly," Coran agreed instantly. "The moral support and all that, right over here on the sidelines."

"Indeed," Allura said. "Although, I have no intention of being an army wife abandoned without a word for months on end. Just be aware of that, Shiro."

"I'll bear that in mind," Shiro said.

"Wait, what?" Lance asked. "What was that?"

"Hold on," Pidge said slowly. "Did you just…?"

"Oh my god," Hunk said. He actually sprung to his feet, disappeared from the camera view for a moment and reappeared an instant later at remarkably close proximity, all but blocking out Pidge's stunned face. "Are you saying this has -? Are you saying it's finally -?"

"So you're finally dating?" Keith asked.

"No way," Lance breathed.

"Yes way!" Hunk cried and threw himself backwards into his chair. His grin was replaced and just as bright as before. "Hell yes way!"

"About time," Pidge said, shaking his head. "About fucking –"

"How long?"

"When were you going to tell us, exactly?"

"Shiro, I can't believe you –"

"- kind of pissed you didn't tell me, Allura."

"- only one out of the loop?"

"- can't believe –"

"- so obvious –"

"- considered it quite obvious myself –"

Shiro could barely keep up with who was speaking through the chaos. Even Coran was adding his contributions to the mix, though Shiro had never been quite sure if he'd known of Shiro and Allura's relationship before then. Shiro kept his attention trained upon where Allura stood, her arms still folded but expression soft as she stared right back at him. He barely heard much of what spun around them except –

"This would have to be one of the best days of my life."

Shiro wasn't sure who said it. He thought it might have been Lance but he didn't glance in his direction to check. When he thought about it, however, when he considered what had arisen that day – that his friends had agreed to join his team, that he and Allura had finally told them of their relationship that had been something more for so long now – he had to agree.

It was certainly one of the best days ever. For Shiro, he doubted it could possibly get any better.


	10. BlackLion007

_The sound of gunshots echoed through the otherwise silent town. Shiro ignored them. Lance would take care of it._

_There was a blur of movement off to his right, the sight of a figure appearing briefly on his periphery. Shiro ignored that too except to acknowledge it. Keith would take care of it._

_He didn't ask what their status was. He didn't ask Pidge of the proximity of the closest hostiles and which moment they needed to duck behind the nearest building. Pidge already had that handled, was handling it even at that moment with headpiece firmly affixed and ears trained for the slightest beeps from her radar that would direct them. "Thirteen hundred, two hostile. Hang a left. Wait… No, we're good, moving on."_

_They moved on. They raced along the narrow stretch of road towards the centre building, towards the site of the hostages, and Shiro didn't need to think of the thousand and one things that would otherwise be plaguing him as the captain of his company. He didn't need to monitor his soldiers' every move, to relay instructions every other minute. He didn't need to watch his back, even if the urge to do so was reflexive, because there was always someone to cover it, always someone with an eye on it for him._

_Shiro didn't need to worry, even in such a tense and potentially deadly situation. Not when he was with his team._

_He barely needed to consider the thick, heavy door of the building that stood directly before them as they charged forwards. Not for such a trivial barrier. Sparing a glance over his shoulder and catching sight of his squad – Keith ducking behind a building and the heavy thump of a fist that followed, Lance edging backwards with rifle raised to his shoulder, Pidge tapping a finger to her earpiece as she darted a glance around herself – Shiro slowed in step. He slowed, not because they wouldn't be charging forwards but because –_

_The door splintered. Fracturing, it caved beneath Hunk's brute force as, with shoulders reinforced for just such battering ram purposes, he charged through the door of the hostages building. The sound of a warbling, terrified shout reverberated through the doorway, the cry of someone who Shiro_ knew _wasn't a hostile._

_Hunk shouted from the depths of the building._

_The sound of Lance's gunfire resounded in Shiro's ears._

_Pidge muttered something at his side – "Gotta move, Shiro. The vultures are descending" – and Keith reappeared at his side._

_Shiro readjusted his grip on his rifle. He spared a final, unnecessary glance around himself – unnecessary as his squad would always be with him, always have his back protected – and he stepped forward._

_It was dark. Gloomy. A single room and sparsely smattered with broken furnishings. Those furnishings, the sway-backed table, the rickety chairs, were likely only so broken after the hostages had been dragged into the building hours before._

_Dragged. Shiro had seen the dragging, as though they were little more than sacks of refuse to be tossed heavily onto and afforded little further care. Even had Shiro not been assigned such a mission, even had he not been told to evacuate the hostages from the scene with as minimal risk to his own team as possible, he wouldn't have been able to stand for that._

_It wasn't right._

_It made him angry._

_The room was far from empty. In a split second, Shiro took in the scene: hostiles first, one, two, three, and yet all suppressed – one on the floor, groaning, another on his knees and the third waveringly lowering his weapon before Hunk's direction. Hostages, clustered in the centre of the room, hunkered upon themselves at two, four, seven altogether. Windows were covered, one other door across the length of the room, potential trip hazards should he have to move fast._

_Shiro absorbed it all in a split second after entering the room. He thought like a machine, he knew, as necessity dictated. He had his squad: positive, all accounted for, none injured and in fighting form. He had his back up: the Mothership, waiting his call. He had his rifle in hand: full cartridge loaded, prepared for use. He had his –_

_"_ _Put it down," Shiro said in an instant, slipping into the local dialect with the thin smattering of words he'd affiliated himself with. His rifle swung to attention without thought._

_The third man, the one that Hunk had already told – ordered, directed, suggested – to lower his weapon hadn't yet done so. Shiro could see it in his face, in what he could make out of his face through the dark, threadbare mask covering his features. He saw the rebellion in the tightness of his lips, the resistance in his eyes. He saw the instant his finger twitched towards the trigger of his own weapon._

_Shiro's rifle trained on the centre of his forehead. "I won't ask you again. Put. It. down."_

_Pidge had always said he had a commanding voice. Hunk had once called it scary, while Lance openly expressed his respect for his "disapproving tone that's more than a little bit intimidating". Keith didn't say anything. He didn't need to, not in such circumstances. Shiro saw on his face the satisfaction, the approval, even, as though he was indeed approving of the use of Shiro's 'captain voice'. Whatever that meant._

_Shiro wasn't thinking about that at that moment. He barely considered his team except with the usual awareness that he always had of them: surrounding him, Lance behind, Hunk in front, Keith at his right and Pidge at his left. They would always be there. Always the support. He didn't even need to consider the other two hostiles, subdued as they were. The moment either might think to reach for their weapons there would be a quartet of metallic muzzles, the cold, unblinking eyes of assault rifles, staring them point blank in the face._

_Shiro had confidence in his squad. He had never second-guessed them or their support. Never._

_As such, he could focus on the third. The third figure, the man still holding his weapon with hands that twitched in trembles just slightly. Shiro didn't blink behind the thin film of his goggles. He didn't look away from the man for even a second. They didn't have the time to waste, to pander to the hostile's resistance, for the hostages needed_ out _, they needed out_ now _– but Shiro paused. He waited._

_Two seconds later and the man's weapon clattered to the dirt floor with a snap of metallic pieces._

_Shiro's team flowed into action in an instant. The hostiles weapons were removed. Hands were disabled with thumb-cuffs, faces pressed to the ground, gestures made more than verbal commands that had all three of them stretched out in a sprawl of defencelessness. A moment later and Lance was standing watch at the door, Hunk at the window, Pidge tapping through her Comms and Keith pinning his eerily unshakeable gaze upon the twitching hostiles on the ground._

_Not so hostile anymore._

_Shiro started across the room to the clutch of hostages at the very centre. Civilians, they were. Townspeople, and they shouldn't have been dragged into the fight. Even if they hadn't taken the precaution of evacuating the town with as much speed as was suggested of them by the Mothership that morning, they didn't deserve such treatment. Mind whirring like a machine as it was, Shiro still felt a stutter of enraged sympathy as he dropped to his haunches before their little huddle, gaze raking over the dirt-smeared faces and wide eyes before him. Tears streaked the masks of filth, clothes were torn from the rough handling, and more than one was trembling in a fit of stark terror. The smell of distress reeked from them, but Shiro didn't care. He felt nothing but aching regret for their circumstances, for the two children in the midst of the rest of the hostages who'd had to witness such things, for the circumstances that had lead to their situation at all._

_It wasn't fair. And it wasn't fair that Shiro's mission was of rescue, not vengeance. The enemy… they should have to pay for what they'd done._

_When Shiro raised one hand in placation, the other tipping his rifle upwards in a gesture of deflected threat, the hostages flinched as one. When he spoke, they flinched again, but the use of their own tongue seemed somewhat soothing, and he didn't miss the slight easing of tension in their midst._

_"_ _We're not going to hurt you," he said slowly, gently, as kindly as he could in the focused and unforgiving mindset his thoughts dwelled. "We've come to help you. We're getting you out of here."_

_None of the hostages spoke. Not immediately, anyway. Glances were exchanged between some while others simply stared at Shiro, at his team over his shoulder, and clutched one another with shaking fingers. Shiro eased further into his crouch and blessedly none flinched this time. "I am sorry for your distress," he said, "and I'm sorry that you have been subjected to this. But just for a little longer we'll need your support and compliance." Another pause and he repeated, "We need to get you out of here."_

_For another moment, none spoke. Then, straightening slightly, a single woman raised her voice waveringly. "Where would you take us?" she asked, her accent so thick that Shiro almost couldn't understand her._

_"_ _To safety," Shiro said. "We have an aircraft waiting to remove us from the scene –"_

 _"_ _Where is 'to safety'?" the woman interrupted him. Her voice still wavered, her dark eyes were wide in her pale, dirty face, but she persisted._

_Shiro paused. He couldn't explain, and not only because of the language barriers between them. They simply didn't have the time for an explanation. So instead, he simply said, "Away from these people who are hurting you."_

_It was a feeble reply. Inadequate, even. But it was all Shiro had the time to give and, after a moment of tense contemplation, the woman – and all of the hostages – seemed to unanimously deem that it was good enough. The woman nodded. Two children exchanged glances. A man swallowed audibly before rising slightly from his knees._

_"_ _Are we good to go?" Lance muttered from the door. "'Cause now might be a good time."_

_Shiro spared him a glance. "How long?" he asked. He didn't need to ask why Lance had spoken. He could hear the unvoiced warning of the encroaching threat in his voice._

_Lance didn't glance towards him, peering out the door from his covered position with eyes visibly narrowed behind his goggles. "T-minus-forty seconds and counting."_

_"_ _Thirty from mine," Hunk grumbled, glaring out the window. "Little bastards, they're making a run for us." The warzone was about the only place that Hunk every got aggressive. It was the only place he ever really got angry._

_Shiro nodded curtly. He shared a glance with Keith, who spared him only a heartbeat of a glance in reply before dropping his gaze back to the hostiles still immobilised on the floor. He didn't need to speak to Keith to tell him to put them temporarily out of action and he didn't watch as Keith dropped to his haunches beside them to do just that._

_Instead, he turned to Pidge, who was peering at him expectantly sidelong. He nodded curtly, rising to his feet. "Send the call to the Mothership, Pidge. We're getting out of here."_

_"_ _With the hostages," she said, more of a statement than a question because of_ course _it would be with the hostages._

_Shiro nodded once more, sparing the hostages a glance as they rose slowly to their feet alongside him, gazes wary. "With the hostages."_

_A pause, for Keith to finish, for Pidge to relay her message, for Lance and Hunk to readjust their rifles just as Shiro did. Then he turned to the door at the back of the room. "We're falling out."_


	11. Allura

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry (again) for the delay in posting, everyone. And I'm a little regretful for just how wordy this chapter is. I hope that's not too unappealing and it remains enjoyable nonetheless.
> 
> Just as a heads up, I'll be posting the next chapter i.e. part 2, just as soon as I can, but given this was quite a long chapter and the next chapter's probably going to have a Part 2 of it's own attached, it might take a little longer.
> 
> Thanks again for reading, and I hope you like it!

_Voltron: Year Six, Month 60/60 of rebirth_

_Paladin of Operation: PrincessOfAltea_

* * *

 

Allura rode.

She'd been riding almost as soon as she could walk, and she adored it. On her parents' estate, wide and sprawling and entirely their own, they agisted a handful of horses while they'd owned another half dozen. Allura's pony and the horse she'd been gifted with when she outgrew the stout little steed, had both been two of her best friends when she'd needed a moment to step out of her life.

Allura needed it. In that moment, she needed it very much.

Riding bareback, the muscles of Duchess' back rippling and rolling beneath her, Allura gave the mare her head. They raced down the slight decline, weaving through the thin lather of snow and clattering across the trickle of the paved footpath that bisected the grounds for a moment before tearing across the snow on the other side. Allura breathed deeply as she absorbed her surroundings; the clean crispness of the air, the flavour of winter, the feel of the chill permeating her jacket as icy fingers slipped beneath her hem. Allura's breath fogged the air before her, nearly blinding, but she didn't care. Curling her fingers around the reigns, she only urged Duchess onwards.

It was creeping towards evening, the sun dying. All around Allura echoed the sounds of the world – birds squawking their indignation at one another as they retreated for the afternoon, wind whispering over the grounds, the distant chugging of distant cars that wound along the distant, twisting roads throughout the smattering of neighbouring estates. It was calm. It was peaceful. Quiet and soothing.

But Allura wasn't soothed. She wasn't calm and she certainly wasn't peaceful. She doubted she ever would be in the absence of the five people who meant the most to her in the world.

How strange it was, to consider that barely five years ago she hadn't known any of her paladins. That she had been a university graduate of science, avidly studying behavioural psychology and loving it until the moment she had fallen prey to her weak heart and been forced into bed rest.

Isolation.

Listlessness and dreariness.

The visitation of her work friends and colleagues, of the few other friends she'd maintained from her studying days, had grown fewer and further between. Allura hadn't begrudged her friends their distancing. They had lives, and just because hers had been put on hold didn't mean that theirs had to be as well.

It still hurt. It still became a struggle every day to wake and force herself into enthusiasm. For Coran. For her doctors and the nurses who drudged through their exhausting hours of work. Just because Allura was being rapidly pulled to pieces by a heart that she'd long ago known couldn't stand by itself forever didn't mean that everyone else had to be dragged down with her. Not even strangers, and certainly not her friends. Coran especially; her oldest friend, her father's old assistant, her pseudo-uncle and brother and the man who had stepped up to the role of father when hers had died and left her an orphan. Allura couldn't do that to him.

It had still been hard. Or at least it had been hard until Voltron. Until her paladins. Until the day that she'd turned over a new leaf and discovered a whole world, a whole people, a _wonderful_ people, that she never would have found had it not been for her regretful circumstances.

Those paladins… they had become Allura's everything. She'd thought her studies were important, and they were. She'd thought completing her work, pursuing her relationships with her colleagues, maintaining her father's estate of Altea, had been important, and they was. Except that, compared to the paladins, each and every one of those commitments paled.

They were important to her. To Allura, those five people, five utterly different people that were still achingly similar in their strength and the trials that weighed upon them, were more important than all of that. As the ground levelled before Allura, spreading into an open expanse of snow-laden smoothness, she urged Duchess to pick up her speed. In a flying canter, legs gripping tightly and body moving instinctively to the undulations of the horse beneath her, Allura tilted her head back and breathed deeply of the air. She breathed and she recalled.

She missed the days that they had all been together – before the army that Allura couldn't help but begrudge just a little in its essence for taking her friends away from her. She missed those days: their dinner outings, infiltrating Hunk's house, movie nights at Shiro's or weekends at the Castle of Altea as they'd all called it. Just as much, however, she missed those times where she'd spent time with each of them individually. At first, it might have been even a little awkward, but over time…

Hunk had been one of the first. After his mother died, he'd been at a loose end. It wasn't that he had too much time on his hands – or too much time when compared to other people – because he still worked long shifts. He still slept half of the day away because his hours at the Balmeran Bakehouse pushed him towards diurnal sleeping habits. He still spent as much time as he could with his grandmother, and Allura knew that Fae made a point of spending just as much time at Hunk's house as she had before her daughter had passed away.

But it wasn't enough. For Hunk who had always had someone in need of his caring hand, who had been stretched every waking hour of the day and some when he should have been sleeping too, the unwanted liberty of his mother's absence had yanked the rug from beneath his feet. Even aside from the grief and the heartache that had all but torn him apart in the weeks – the months – following Maggie Garrett's passing, his world was tilted on its axis.

Increasingly in those months, Allura had found Hunk on her doorstep. She'd been surprised at first, for he was the first to take her up on her offer of visiting whenever he liked. That offer had been one she'd offered to every single paladin, but none had quite acted upon then. She would always remember the first evening when he'd showed up on her doorstep, the cab crunching away down the gravelled driveway as it abandoned him at her door.

He was crying. Not sobbing, but the tears were dribbling down his cheeks nonetheless. Allura didn't comment on his presence. She didn't ask what was wrong because she knew. She didn't say anything but, "Hunk! What a wonderful surprise! Would you like to stay for the night?"

Hunk only nodded and followed her inside, and thus began their unexpected evenings with just she, Hunk and Coran. She'd come to cherish those evenings as much as she had the closeness that had been born from them. She loved that Hunk began to open up to her, to speak to her as more of a friend, to ask for help when he needed it. The profound exchanges struck her and those they would discuss at length.

"I don't know if I should go to college. For some reason I just don't really want to."

"I love the Bakehouse – seriously, everyone there is, like… they're awesome. But I can't see myself as a baker for the rest of my life, you know? Maybe I should ask Larry if I could start working at his hardware place…"

"I don't know what to do with myself. It's always been about my m-mom. I don't know, now that she's gone…"

It hurt to hear because Allura hated to think her friend was in such pain, that he struggled through such loss and confusion. She helped just as much as she could and more often than not that help was in the form of simply offering an ear to listen with. Those nights were oddly reminiscent of the original Voltron what now seemed so long ago.

Just as often as the profound discussions, however, as often as the deep and the heartwrenching that had ended in Allura wrapping Hunk in an embrace that grew more comfortable with each reattempt, were the light-hearted exchanges. Those Allura cherished just as much.

"I just don't think I can do it anymore. It feels like such a betrayal. How can I wear an orange bandana when my colour's yellow? Orange is _Coran's_ colour."

"DiffWizard didn't admit it, but I won. I totally won. He just doesn't like to think of anyone else being as good at him at games, even though I _told_ him that it wasn't so bad because I'd practiced and it was his first attempt."

And finally: "She's cute. I mean, really cute. I didn't even realise she had a crush on me or anything until she said something, and that she said something at all was unexpected. Shay's always been so shy!"

Allura loved that. She loved the little insights she was given into Hunk's life just as much as she did the moments he revealed his depths. And she missed them. She missed those evenings where it was just the two of them and Coran.

Just as she missed those she'd shared with Pidge.

Since the boys had left for the army – and they would always be 'the boys' in her mind, even when Pidge included himself in that category because as a boy Pidge distinctly separated himself for not being a 'meathead' – they two had grown close in a way that Allura hadn't expected. That they were the only two girls of Voltron, and sometimes not even that depending on Pidge's circumstances, didn't seem to be a particular point of bonding between them.

Allura didn't mind. She didn't need to be bound by something so fluid as gender. But for the years before it had happened, the years before Pidge had enlisted, she would admit that she'd wanted to grow closer to Pidge.

It had happened. Slowly, and more as a product of necessity, something grew For Pidge, Allura had never been her closest friend. Pidge likely would have followed Shiro anywhere had the chance was given, often preaching of his 'stupidly incredible self'. There was true adoration for him. Utterly sincere.

Pidge had just such friendships with each of the paladins – her bantering relationship with Lance that was nothing short of fraternal. She bonded with Hunk over their mutual love for technology that even Allura, working in AI as she had tentatively begun years ago, couldn't emulate. She and Keith had a strange relationship founded on an unexpected similarity, and Allura often assumed the role of a simple observer when they conversed. It wasn't until the boys had left that she'd really begun to develop any kind of something with Pidge at all.

And Allura had loved it. She loved their afternoons at the university when Pidge had visited and more often than not fallen immediately into working on her little drone. She loved when Coran would drop by early in his pick up with a handful of traitorous cookies from Levain Bakery and they would sip tea and coffee and chat the evening away. She loved it even more when they'd begun their video chats with the rest of the paladins.

Allura missed those days with Pidge. She missed them just as keenly as she did those with the rest of her friends when they'd left. She missed their smiles and their laughter, their raucous conversation – and who could be louder than Lance himself?

For a time, Allura had been nothing but amusedly exasperated by Lance. He was a flirt, a shameless flirt even if that flirtatiousness was more in good fun than with any kind of truth. Given that even before she'd met them Allura had an inkling that she was a good sight older than Lance, she'd found it nothing if not a little funny that he'd thought that pursuing any kind of romantic relationship was a likelihood.

It had been funny. Very funny. Lance was a funny kind of person.

Allura hadn't truly begun to grow close to Lance, however, until after they'd met. Until after he'd begun dating Keith and, despite his incessant urge to flirt, the interest he'd held in Allura significantly waned. Allura would have been a fool to think that any of his offhanded comments to the effect directed towards her had any weight; it was starkly apparent that he had eyes only for Keith, and had apparently only had eyes since the moment they'd met in person.

It was sweet. Wonderfully sweet, and Allura had shared words with Hunk concerning just that sweetness more times than she could count. She and Hunk appeared to be the only ones who revelled in sighing and giggling over their friends and their adorable relationship.

Because it was adorable. It most certainly was.

Lance might continue to flirt, but his interest in Allura had waned to next to nothing. It was then, at the point that Allura knew Lance realised it himself, that they'd truly grown closer. She would always remember that conversation.

"Now Allura," Lance said, quirking an eyebrow at her across the restaurant table where the entirety of Voltron dined together. "You know I'm a taken man. Offering me a bite of your dinner is nothing short of suggestive."

His words were nearly drowned out by the rest of the paladins, talking in vibrant discussion of goodness only knew what, and even that was almost smothered beneath the volume of the rest of the restaurant. Allura didn't think she'd ever been to a restaurant so loud in her life, and it was far from any of the kind of upstanding formality that she'd grown up with, but she found she quite liked it nonetheless. She'd grown to appreciate positive atmospheres and such vibrancy over the straight-laced and serene wealth of the restaurants she'd dined at for most of her life.

Shaking her head, Allura bit back a smirk. "Lance, don't be ridiculous. Firstly, you'd be doing me a favour because truly, I'm not as fond of shellfish as I once was –"

"Then why'd you get a seafood dish?"

"I have no idea," Allura said and continued through Lance's interruption. "And secondly, really, you don't need to keep up this façade of flirtatiousness. I don't think anyone believes you're interested in me in the slightest, and I wouldn't expect you to be."

Lance's teasing smile faded into raised eyebrows. His mouth flopped open slightly. "What?"

Allura picked at a bite of her pasta. It wasn't _bad_ exactly, but she couldn't think what had possessed her to order the seafood. "You enjoy the act of flirting. I understand, for it can indeed be a lot of fun. But I don't think you'd find it so surprising to hear that you appear to far more thoroughly enjoy yourself when you're flirting with you _boyfriend_ than with me." Raising her gaze from her plate, Allura arched an eyebrow. "Don't you think?"

Lance's mouth open and closed for a moment before he stuttered out a word. "But –"

"Of course, there was never anything between the two of us anyway, so such would hardly change anything. Perhaps you feel obligated to continue with such for the sake of stubbornness?"

Lance blinked at her as though she'd struck him with a baton of truth. Maybe she had just a little. Maybe Lance truly hadn't realised that he flirted with other people quite so much, or that in spite of doing so, whenever he did he would glance towards Keith as though to discern whether Keith had noticed and if he cared.

Keith cared. Allura knew he cared. She'd seen him frown upon observing as much on more than one occasion, had heard him ask Lance, "Why do you do that?" to Lance's oblivious, "Do what?" Just as she'd seen him deliberately begin to ignore such acts on Lance's part and Lance thence attempt to provoke him all the more determinedly. Lance loved to provoke an argument out of everyone, and that included Keith, though it was always in good-humour. Lance, Allura had discovered, simply loved to argue.

Maybe Keith realised that too. Maybe that was why he stopped visibly caring whenever Lance flirted. But surely Lance himself wasn't so oblivious as to why he did so. Was he?

Apparently he was, because his confusion remained as Allura watched him and picked at her pasta. "What?" he said again. His mouth still hung open a little.

"You're sweet, Lance," Allura said, and she hoped she didn't sounds as condescending as the words themselves seemed. "But it's very clear you have eyes only for Keith." She nodded to Lance's side to where even then Keith was engaged in what appeared to be an engrossing conversation with Shiro. "You don't need to keep up the act of pretending to be interested in me too."

Lance didn't say anything to that, but Allura could see his mind ticking as he turned her words over. Then, like the sun of realisation breaking through a confusion of clouds, a smile broke out across his face and he grinned at Allura crookedly. It was a different grin to those he usually wore and Allura found she quite liked it on him.

Then he leant towards Keith and quite deliberately hooked his arm around Keith's neck, leaning against him as he dropped his chin onto Keith's shoulder in a now familiar gesture. Keith, seemingly more instinctively that deliberately, leant back into him. He didn't pause in his conversation with Shiro for a second yet accepted the weight of Lance around him as though it was entirely normal.

Sweet. It was very sweet and Allura couldn't withhold the quiet sigh that arose within her. A conspiratorial glance towards Hunk to meet his gaze showed she wasn't the only one to think so.

After that, the last wall between them that Allura had hardly even known existed fell away. Lance ceased his flirtatiousness and they'd grown closer for it. He offered Allura the same affable hugs he did the rest of his friends, and there wasn't a suggestive comment to be heard. They actually shared conversations and when Lance laughed it was with hearty amusement and not a care for whether Allura considered him 'attractive' when he did so.

Allura missed his laugh. She missed it a lot. It was one of the things alongside his noise and vibrancy, his welcoming and jovial smile itself, that she missed the most about Lance's absence.

Just as much as she missed Keith's quiet, contemplative directness.

For a long time, Allura and Keith hadn't been close. Even after a whole year of knowing one another, Allura could count on one hand how many times they'd held a conversation solely with one another and still have fingers to spare. It wasn't that she disliked Keith – far from it, in fact, because Allura didn't dislike any of the paladins – but Keith was reserved. He was reluctant to trust. He was hesitant and withdrawn and, with the exception of Lance who had all but forced his presence upon him, there were precious few he allowed even within reaching distance. For a long time Allura hadn't been one of them.

She'd wanted it to be. Allura had sorely wanted to connect with Keith as she had with Hunk, with Lance, as she hadn't known she would with Pidge, but she also knew that Keith wouldn't be like Hunk and come to her with tears and blatant need. He wasn't like Lance and muscling her way into his company wasn't the approach that Allura would be able to take with Keith. In all likelihood he'd pull away from her, removing himself from her company in the manner that he had in their early days of Voltron.

Allura didn't want him to disappear from their real life chatroom. She didn't want to upset him and even knowing that he'd grown more comfortable with the paladins, that he'd perhaps even begun to trust them – significantly trust them as he had when he'd moved into Shiro's apartment – there was still the wary distance that he placed between himself and them all but Lance. There was still the pause before he spoke, the consideration that wasn't so much for his incessant bluntness but for how much he felt he could share at all.

Keith had trust issues. Even after years, it was clearly a struggle for him to even consider taking his friends into his confidence. And it was entirely warranted, in Allura's opinion. He'd had little enough reason to trust anyone in the past from what she could discern. If Allura ever had the chance to meet the D'Ascartes family…

Allura wasn't a violent person, but she didn't need physical violence to leave her opponents floored and gasping in the dust of her wake.

Crossing the bridge between herself and Keith was something that she couldn't do herself, however. For once, Allura didn't know how. She didn't even know where to start, and that hurt just a little. Allura wanted to be closer to her friends, to _all_ of her friends, but with Keith she simply… couldn't.

As she should have expected, her decision to act was taken from her. Just as she'd come to discover was more commonplace for him, it had been on Keith's terms, too.

Allura had noticed only in hindsight how it had crept upon her. How Keith had appeared to turn towards her more often than not in a conversation and ask for her opinion. How he'd listened and audibly respected her contributions as though they held real weight. From anyone else, such attentiveness might have seemed negligible, but everything Keith did was with his entirety. He was an all-or-nothing kind of person, and Allura didn't realise he'd taken step to completely accepting her until he called her one evening.

It had been when he'd already enlisted in the army. Years into that enlistment, in fact, and Allura hadn't seen all that much of him. It was entirely surprising to receive a call from him and even more so when the words, "I'm in New York at the moment. Would you mind if I stayed at your place tonight? I have something I wanted to talk to you about."

Allura wouldn't have said no even if she couldn't afford to be home at the time, because Keith had taken that step. _Keith_ had _._ Perhaps without fully understanding what it meant at the time, Allura had known that something was very definitely changing between the two of them.

They spent the night in one another's comapny. They and Coran, and it was surprisingly easy considering Allura had never been close to Keith, to say nothing of seeing him not at all for months. She didn't question his sudden return to New York City, nor why he'd felt the desire to come to Altea rather than make the trip to Long Island Beach and Shiro's apartment.

Allura asked the necessities, though. She asked, bluntly and directly, because with Keith such an approach would always be the best. It was who Keith was.

"I can't help but wonder, Keith. On the phone you said you had something you wanted to talk about?"

Lowering his glass after a sip, Keith placed it deliberately upon the table. He paused for a long moment before raising his gaze to meet Allura's, and when he spoke it was slow, contemplative, and just as deliberate. "I was wondering… I have something of a situation that I'm ill equipped to handle on my own. I thought…" He paused, then even more slowly, even more deliberately, "Could you help me?"

In that moment, Allura knew on a physical level that something had changed. That Keith had grown, and it wasn't only that he was no longer the teenage boy she'd once met. It wasn't that he'd joined the army and had both hardened and sagged slightly beneath the weight of the world. Keith had grown because for once, for the first time, he was trusting Allura.

Allura didn't hesitate. She was slow in replying, but not hesitant in the slightest. She tipped her head in a nod. "Yes, of course. How can I help?"

Allura helped Keith as she could. She helped him with what was revealed to be the mess of his parents' inheritance, something he hadn't touched for years because it held no interest for him. She helped him with his finances, with the wealth that he'd come into that he professed he "Didn't want," and that he should "Just give to Lance's family or something".

"I don't think they'd take it," Allura said quietly, glancing up from the mess of papers towards Keith where he sat as straight-backed and attentive as ever.

Keith nodded. "I know," he said simply.

That moment had been a turning point. For many, Allura knew that it wouldn't have seemed great. That it might have even seemed dry and tedious to pore over, or that Allura might have begrudged seeing nothing of him for months and exchanging little more than written words through Voltron and then being asked for help with such a thing.

But Allura didn't mind. If anything, she loved it. It was such a small thing, but Keith had asked for her help. Keith, the boy who had once been so resistant to even taking himself to a hospital when he so obviously needed it. The boy who had denied the help of friends to offer him a bed to sleep in when he was injured or the accompaniment of those friends to travel a road that was nothing if not tumultuous as he took his first steps as an adult. That boy had asked for help.

Allura and Keith had never been close before, but at that moment she knew they shared a connection that was barely visible yet unshakeably strong. Keith, just like the rest of Voltron, was her paladin. He always would be.

It was with such thoughts and reminiscence that Allura was gripped as she ploughed across the grounds. Beneath her, Duchess huffed heavily and panted in plumes of visible mist. The spray of snow around them puffed sighs of cold breath at Allura's boots, felt even through the thick, worked leather soles, and in sharp contrast to the heat radiating from the horse's flanks. With barely a thought, Allura drew Duchess to a slow trot and finally to a walk. It probably wasn't the safest of acts to charge at a near gallop across snow-laden grounds, but Allura had needed it. She'd needed those brief moments of freedom to reflect because…

She missed her friends.

She missed them so dearly, and after Pidge had left to enlist in the army nearly three years ago too, she had grown to feel very alone. They visited, they talked on Voltron almost every day when one of another of them weren't deployed and video chatted as often as they could, but it wasn't the same. Allura missed them all so much, and the distance only made that longing even sharper. It was different being able to see them in person, to not feel the weight of a shoulder beneath her reaching hand, to be unable to hear their laughter in her ears without the filter of audio speakers and to feel the heat of their presence beside her.

Drawing Duchess to a stop, Allura's fingers tightened on her reins. She tilted her head backwards towards the darkening clouds overhead her and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. Shiro. Allura didn't have a favourite amongst her paladins for she loved them each in their own ways and terribly deeply. But Shiro…

Shiro was perhaps the one she missed the most.

It had always been going to happen. Just as Hunk had said, it was obvious. Just as Pidge had agreed with a long-suffering sigh, it was inevitable. Lance's joking denials that the possibility were clearly false, and even Keith stating how it was going to happen because, "You fit together so perfectly that it couldn't _not_."

Allura had been in a relationship with Shiro for nearly three years and it had never lost its loving glow. She didn't think it could, either, because just as her friends had said, it was inevitable. When she first spoke to Shiro in direct openness of what was the reality of their relationship, it had felt as though she was voicing that which they had already known and accepted. She could still remember that day so vividly in her mind. It was perhaps her fondest memory, even if it wasn't touched with the romance or intimacy of others.

"Perhaps we do need to talk," Allura murmured as she wandered through the grounds with Shiro at her side. Barely a week before Christmas and luck would have it that Allura had been gifted with the presence of all of her friends that year. Across the grounds, flinging themselves through the snow, the rest of the paladins were in open warfare of the snowball fighting variety. Shrieks of objection, of challenge and ferocity sounded in a way that Allura knew would never had slipped from their lips in true battle. They were soldiers, each and every one of them, and even Pidge, barely a year into her enlistment, was showing the signs of battle-hardness.

For a brief moment, it was just Allura and Shiro. Only for a moment, however, because they too had been thoroughly embroiled in the snowball fight but minutes before. Coran had called for a brief pause with a heavy sigh, grinding to a stop in his youthful flight. "Well balls, everyone, I'm puffed. How's about I go and grab us some nibblies and hot chocolate as a temporary respite?"

As he'd trotted away, snow still falling from his shoulders from Pidge's last impressively accurate shot, the rest of the paladins paused in play. They exchanged a glance.

"Did he just say balls?" Lance asked, a slow smile spreading across his face. He shook his head. "I love this guy."

"How does he think he's going to carry hot chocolate and snacks down here?" Keith asked, tossing the remains of a snowball between his hands.

Pidge shrugged. "He's talented. And why do you care? You don't even like sweet food."

"The blasphemy," Hunk muttered, shaking his head.

"Maybe we could take a break?" Shiro suggested. "Wind down for a moment before –"

"Round two," Allura said, nodding solemnly. "And I personally throw my vote in for a 'to the death' rather than this ridiculous points system we've established."

"Brutal," Lance grinned. At his side, Keith's smile twitched into appearance and the juggling of his snowball became somehow slightly threatening.

"Alright, old man," Pidge said, propping her hands on her hips. "If you need a break, Shiro, we won't think too poorly of you."

"Old man?" Shiro asked.

"You heard me. And I speak with utmost respect, by the way."

"He's not even ten years older than you are, Pidge," Allura said, taking herself to Shiro's side and offering him a teasing smile. "Don't worry, not all of us believe you're beyond your years. Why, I'm older than you, even."

"You sound so incredulous at that," Shiro chuckled. "Do I really look so old?"

"Ah. Perhaps it's the fringe?"

"You think white isn't my colour?"

"Quite the contrary, I find it rather dashing."

"Maybe a break would be a good idea," Hunk said, breaking into their exchange. As Allura glanced towards him, past where Pidge was making a show of windmilling her arms in some kind of stretching display and Lance was eying Keith's snowball warily, she noticed a light, knowing quirk to his lips that was far from unfamiliar. "Have a bit of a chat between us? Maybe between you two in particular?" Hunk waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Allura didn't quite know what to make of his suggestion, but she took him up on it nonetheless. And thus she and Shiro found themselves wandering the grounds at short distance as the rest of their friends broke into a spontaneous fight that was, in Allura's opinion, entirely inevitable. Play-fighting was simply the nature of their relationship much of the time.

At her side, Shiro nodded to her words. "Yes, perhaps we should."

"Are you thinking about…?"

Shiro glanced towards her. "I'm not the only one, am I?"

Allura pondered for a moment. They were both being vague, but she considered that it wasn't for belief that the other spoke of a different topic. It was obvious. Had been obvious for a while, apparently, or according to Hunk it was. Like the gradual and unshakeable movement of tectonic plates – thought Allura hoped it wasn't quite so slow – it was inevitable. She and Shiro coming together was always going to happen.

"I'm very fond of you, Shiro," she said slowly, contemplatively. Then she shook her head. "No, that sounds far too clinical."

Pausing in step, Allura turned more fully. Shiro turned towards her similarly, and Allura found she only had to look up at him slightly. It was nice, in a way. There weren't many people that Allura wasn't taller than, and yet Shiro didn't loom over her in any kind of threatening manner. Despite his relatively new promotion into an officer, she had never considered him an aggressive or intimidating person. He was simply… Shiro.

"Not too clinical," Shiro said, a small smile touching his lips. "I'm very fond of you too."

"But it's more than that," Allura said, frowning slightly though not to Shiro. "At least it is for me, and I would hope that it is for you, too."

"It is."

"I more than a little adore you, Shiro."

"And I you."

"And I'd very much like to pursue a closer relationship with you, should you be so interested."

Shiro's smile widened further. "Now _that_ sounds clinical."

Allura pursed her lips. "Too much so?"

Shiro shook his head and took a slight step towards her. Allura could feel the warmth radiating from him even through the thickness of her jacket. "No. Not too much at all. In fact, I'd very much like to pursue a closer relationship with you too."

"Is that so?"

"Very much so."

And that was that. As simple as that. Or not quite as simple, perhaps; Allura couldn't look away from Shiro for a long moment. She found her breath shortening just slightly, a swirl of warmth rise within her in direct opposition of the chill biting at her fingers. She felt the urge to reach for Shiro and to touch him rise within her. It was simple, and yet infinitely complex as well. There would be more – to discuss, to attempt, to explore. And they would have the chance.

But not then. The moment was abruptly broken by Coran's return with a bellowing cry of, "Hot chocolate and biscuits, paladins!" and Allura smothered her urge. Later. They would have time for such later. Allura knew that, yet she was still somewhat thrilled that Shiro fell into step alongside her as they made their way across the grounds. She loved that, just subtly, just slightly, his hand brushed the back of her own as they walked.

After that, they were together. The spent _time_ together, and though Allura had dated before, she'd never been with anyone quite like Shiro. Like fractured pieces of a window pieced back together, they seemed to fit perfectly. It was something she'd always known, something she'd accepted of herself and all of the paladins since she'd grown close to them, but with Shiro it was just a little different again.

She missed him sorely when he was away. She missed the gentle touches, the softness of his smile, the adoration that echoed her own in his eyes. She missed their quiet moments when it was simply they together as much as those in the throughs of passion, and each of those moments were just as profoundly absent as those Allura felt for pertaining to the rest of Voltron. It hardly mattered that, in the event that Shiro returned to New York City for a time, they were all but glued to one another's sides. That Shiro accompanied her to the university and more often than not back to the Castle of Altea if Allura didn't spend the night at his apartment. It wasn't difficult to manage, especially when the rest of the paladins became aware of what they'd likely already suspected.

It wasn't difficult to manage… when Shiro was _there_. But he, like the rest of Voltron, was gone. They were somewhere that Allura couldn't follow. She'd said she wouldn't remain home and idle like a wistful army wife, but in the face of what wasn't abandonment but left a similar aftertaste, she couldn't help but mourn.

Allura wanted to be with them. She wanted to be at their side, even knowing that her assistance would be minute at best. Allura knew she was smart, was strong despite her past illness and physically capable, but she wasn't a trained soldier. She could fire a rifle – as Coran had long ago taught her – and fly a jet – as Coran had also taught her in place of assisting with her obtaining a driver's licence – but she wouldn't be of much use on the battlefield.

Or at least Allura had been told as much. By Coran. By a regretful Shiro who had informed her that she had to stay behind on their first mission as the covert squad VSF.

"You think I wouldn't manage?" Allura asked, perhaps the angriest she'd ever been with Shiro or any of the paladins. "You think I would slow you down? Get in your way?"

Throughout the primary living room of the Castle, discomfort reigned. Hunk shifted awkwardly in his seat. Pidge – DiffWizard at the time – slipped from his own seat and scuttled across the room, as though to put further distance between himself and Allura's cold fury. Lance cleared his throat and muttered an overloud, "Well, this is awkward," only to be silenced by Keith a moment later when he hissed a short, "Shush," and standing with arms folded and gaze trained, affixed his attention upon Allura. Keith appeared to be the only one not discomforted by her words. Even Coran muttered something indecipherable before darting from the room.

Or everyone but Shiro, that was. Shiro was always composed – or at least he always was when it was concerning the health and safety of his friends. In that moment, his composure was practically tangible as he stood before Allura, feet planted and gaze unwavering. He wasn't frowning but there was no room for compromise in his expression.

"Allura, you know that's not true," he said gently.

"Do I?" Allura demanded. "I'm not a helpless damsel that needs defending rather than stepping up to the play. Don't lump me in with such pathetic creatures, Shiro."

"Pathetic creatures?" Pidge said behind her. "This is getting ugly."

Allura ignored him in favour of fastening her gaze on Shiro as he continued. "I never said you were." He shook his head, arms slowly folding. Always slowly, as though he feared that moving his metal arm with any speed might endanger someone. He'd always used it as such. "But just because you're capable doesn't immediately give you the right to accompany us."

"I have every right," Allura said, for once abandoning any rationality and speaking the words she _wanted_ to be true rather than knew were fact. "You are my paladins. How will I know you're safe if I'm not the one to stand by you and protect you?"

"We don't need protection," Keith said quietly, similarly from behind her. A muffled shushing sound that Allura suspected might have been Lance smothered any further words. Allura didn't glance towards either of them.

Shiro nodded his head in recognition of Keith's words, however. "Keith's right. We don't need protection."

"You bloody well do," Allura hissed.

"We're capable too, Allura."

"I _know_ that. It doesn't mean you'll be safe in a war zone."

"Allura, you're not coming."

"You can't tell me what I –"

"Allura. This is the army. We're going on a mission." The softness, the gentleness, slowly faded from Shiro's expression. His jaw tightened. "You're not coming."

For once, Allura couldn't bring herself to continue her protests. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, words tickling the back of her throat with increasing demand, and she felt her shoulders tremble just slightly for the _utter frustration_ of the situation. But she didn't speak. Not yet.

Later, in the privacy of Shiro's company alone, however, she spoke. More than that, Allura crumpled. She didn't like to think of it in such a way, but she'd bowed beneath the weight of reality, of Shiro's words and the encroaching absence of her friends on their first mission as V-Special Force. Clenching her lips against trembling, her eyes from the upwelling of distraught tears, she wrapped her arms around Shiro's neck.

"I'm scared," she whispered into his shoulder.

"Don't be," Shiro murmured back, pressing his lips into the side of her head. "It's alright."

"Not for me. For all of you."

"I know."

"You're all going at once."

"I know."

Allura's fingers curled into claws, digging into Shiro's neck. He didn't protest. "What if disaster befalls you? What if something happens on the mission and you have no assistance?" Drawing away from Shiro slightly, Allura met his dark eyes imploringly. She didn't even know what she was asking for. That he not leave? That he not take those who had become her family away with him? She didn't know. "What happens then?"

Shiro wasn't smiling, but his expression had softened. He drew his fingers into Allura's hair, the cool kiss of metal brushing against her ear. "Are you jinxing us?" he asked, only faintly teasing.

"This isn't a joking matter, Shiro," Allura scolded, not quite harshly. "Don't make light of it."

"I'm not," Shiro replied. "But just as I won't make light of it, you shouldn't doubt us."

"I'm not –"

"We might be a small team, but we work well together. You know we do." Then his smile arose, a faint play of confidence upon his lips. "We've trained for this but more than that, we were _born_ to work together. You know that."

And Allura did. She did know. She remembered their first Christmas years ago, before any of them had joined the army and she'd only just gotten out of hospital. She remembered the first snowball fight they'd ever shared, when Allura had been only capable of acting the referee in what had quickly descended into a fierce battle. She'd seen it then, how the paladins worked together. Somehow, as though they truly had been built to complement one another, they worked as one _._ There was strategy to their game, a combining of forces, an allocation of duties based on skillsets. And that had been only a game.

Allura thought that maybe even then she had known that Special Forces squad VSF would one day eventuate. She couldn't recall even a moment of surprise when Shiro had revealed it to her.

Or when she'd guessed herself, because Shiro hadn't really told her anything at first. He'd incidentally left it to Allura's powers of deduction to discern. Which she had, because Allura was a logical person, an analyst, and could always see the situation objectively and removed from emotion.

Or that was how she used to have been, anyway. Not anymore. Not for this. Not since her parents could Allura recall ever caring for anyone as dearly as she did for Shiro and the other paladins. She had often reminisced thoughtfully that Voltron had perhaps ruined her for any other meaningful friendships. Everyone else just felt… unfitted.

Allura loved her paladins. She had confidence in them. It was the only reason that, at Shiro's words, she was able to nod rather than snap that war was _dangerous_ and it didn't matter if they were trained or born for such roles in the army because they could get _hurt_. Biting fiercely upon her words, she only squeezed him tighter, a little punishingly, until Shiro grunted and drew slightly away. The kiss she planted upon his lips was just as fierce.

That had been before their first mission. The second was only slightly less terrifying and the third only a little better than that. At the fourth, though Allura had the vague confidence instilled by precedent, she was still worried. No, she was still terrified, because terror and mind-numbing fear for her friends was all she could manage to embrace when they were absented on one of their 'secret missions' that _of course_ she knew nothing about.

Of course. Nothing.

Except that Voltron had never much been one for following the rules.

Allura was killing time. With her distractions. With her riding. At fifteen-hundred hours Voltron had touched down in a war zone. That was nearly two hours ago. Allura wasn't supposed to watch – Coran had even practically forced her not to – because when she grew worried – _terrified_ – the urge to do something was uncontrollable. To do anything, even. Coran had sighed regretfully over more than one shattered vase that Allura hadn't been able to help but hurl across the room while waiting for the barest word.

Perhaps it was a good thing that he'd encouraged her to stay at home from work. Her lab was filled with expensive equipment, after all, and far from caring unduly what her superiors might thing, Pidge and Hunk both would have scolded her and wailed their horror respectively should she damage any of it. Allura couldn't do that to her friends. Not now. Not even when they were doing something so dangerous themselves _._

Dropping her hand absently to her pocket, Allura sighed. Her fingers brushed against the bump buried within, but as it had been more and more often of late, her phone was silent. It didn't buzz with the once-frequent messages that had plagued Voltron. It didn't chime with a laughing quotation, nor resound with the back and forth banter of paladins as they replied to one another with lightning fast speed. Allura swallowed the lump that rose in her throat at the thought. She missed that too. So much she missed, and yet she couldn't… she didn't…

 _I can do nothing_ , she thought.

With a click of her tongue, a grunt of frustration that caused Duchess' tufted ears to twitch towards her, she turned the mare back to the Castle and stables below it at a slow trot. It likely really was a little too cold to remain outside for any extended period, but more than that, Allura couldn't sit still. Not when Voltron was on a mission. Again. Without her.

_This isn't right. I'm not a soldier, but it isn't right. I should be… I should be with them…_

It didn't matter that Allura was an alumni who spent her days bent over a table and flicking through papers, or squinting at a computer screen, or riddling through the impossibilities as to why her project wasn't working quite right. Allura should have been with her friends. In their absence and over the years, despite everything – her love for her work, her comfort at the university and respect for theory, her understanding that written knowledge was just as important practical – she knew where she should be. Where she truly wanted to be.

Gritting her teeth, she urged Duchess into a canter. They scaled the decline in moments.

The flood of warmth that hit Allura as she entered the house after stabling Duchess was like sinking into a warm bath. Shrugging out of her jacket, Allura slipped from her boots and padded down the yawning, carpeted length of the hallway in search of Coran. She'd abandoned him earlier that afternoon already in a desperate attempt to find distraction from her thoughts. It had worked, if only somewhat. She found herself less panicked and more melancholic for reflection upon her friends and all they had been, all they'd shared.

Or at least she was until, back in her Castle, the jitteriness of panic settled upon her once more. There was nothing wrong, Allura knew there was nothing wrong because there couldn't be, not for her friends, and yet she found her step picking up speed as she peered into the parlour and the living room, the kitchen and the dining hall and eventually made her way up the wide stairwell in search of her one remaining friend.

"Coran?" Allura called, her voice echoing slightly. The bare walls, the halls and rooms that had never felt so empty before they'd been flooded with paladins. Nothing but stillness. "Coran, where are you?"

"Princess?" came the instant reply. "You're back?"

"Yes," Allura replied, taking the stairwell two steps at a time as she scaled to the second floor in pursuit of Coran's voice. "Is something the matter?"

"Something is… no, something is not the matter. Not the matter at all. Far from it in fact, it couldn't be further from the matter of – of anything mattering in the slightest. Why, if I could consider circumstances to be of less consequence considering the circumstances themselves, it would be laughable. I would think that…"

Allura frowned. Listening with barely half an ear as Coran continued his rambling, she picked up her step until she was nearly running down the second floor hallway. Coran sounded casual as he spoke, and that casualness was concerning in itself. He shouldn't be casual. Not at all. Not now.

Bursting into the computer room – for computer room was what it had been called despite holding barely three computers and a smartboard to its name – Allura paused just inside the doorway. She snapped her gaze around the room for a moment until it locked upon Coran bent nearly double over the primary computer. He started guiltily at her entrance.

"Princess," he said warmly, smile crinkling his cheeks and twitching his moustache. "I didn't expect you to be back quite so soon this evening. I –"

"Coran, what has happened?" Allura interrupted him, striding across the room to his side. "What's wrong?"

"Wrong, Princess?"

Allura planted herself before him, propping her hands on her hips and narrowing her eyes. She loved Coran, like a brother, an uncle, a father after her own had passed, but she felt no qualms about ploughing through his dancing attempts at avoidance when necessary. None at all. "What have you heard? Are the paladins alright?"

It could have been an empty demand. Allura could have been running her mouth in desperation, requesting that Coran known that which he should have no access to. And in anyone else it would have been.

Except this was Coran Hieronymous Wimbleton Smythe. Few enough people knew that he'd once been an officer himself, and a distinguished one at that, before he'd retired ahead of his time to care for Allura when her father passed. 'Butler' was an affectionate term that Allura's father had called him with respect to Coran's own father's position, but it couldn't have been further from the truth. Coran was a soldier.

More importantly than that, he had connections. Those connections Allura similarly had no qualms about abusing when the situation required it. When it came to Voltron, to the paladins, to VSF, there was certainly very high requisite.

Still, Coran shifted reluctantly until Allura took another slight step towards him. "Coran," she warned.

Coran cringed and quickly typed a command into the computer. "There's nothing to worry about, Princess. Nothing at all."

"The paladins are –"

"They're fine. They're fine now, I promise."

"Now?"

Coran flinched once more. He raised a hand to press his index finger into the junction between his eyebrows, squeezing his eyes closed for a moment in a mask of regret. Clearly he hadn't meant to give away such a pivotal piece of information. "They're fine, Princess," he sighed heavily.

"But?"

Allura hadn't meant for her tone to come out quite so sharply, but she didn't regret it. Not really. Not when Coran opened his eyes and peered up at her guiltily before continuing. "There, ah… was a slight hiccup."

For a split second, Allura felt her heart seize. It felt just as bad, worse, even, then each pain that had struck her in her illness years ago. She was starting forwards before she'd even realised she intended to move and slamming a hand onto the desk at Coran's side loud enough that he cringed. "Tell me," she demanded.

Coran's moustache bristled like an objectionable cat, but the imploring gaze he turned towards Allura was very much that of a scolded puppy. Allura didn't let it affect her. She needed answers.

Evidently, Coran realised as much, for he blurted out a reply an instant later. "Alright. Now – alright, so don't get too upset, Princess, but something happened on the mission, and it's not bad but it was a bit alarming so you mustn't get too upset because –"

"Coran." Allura sliced through his rambling in an instance, razor sharp. Her fingers curled on the desk. "What. Happened?"

Coran swallowed. "Ah. Well. Yes, um… you see, what happened was that for a brief moment the communication lines went down. It wasn't so much a problem, except that they were down a the time of Voltron's retreat. They got out," Coran raised his voice slightly, apparently sensing Allura's sudden need to erupt in demands of who could _possibly_ have been so stupid as to allow such a thing to happen. "They're fine, if a little battered and worse for wear. In a pickle when it happened, they were, given that they were in the –"

"In the middle of a warzone of hostiles and with their communication down?" Allura bit out her words with anger to hide her fear. _They're out_ , she chanted to herself. _They're out and safe, if 'a little worse for wear' as Coran calld it_. Somehow, the thought wasn't quite so comforting as it perhaps should have been. Her paladins, her friends, her _Voltron,_ had been in a fix and she hadn't even known. What if something had happened to them? What if they'd become trapped, or one of them was critically injured, and Allura hadn't been there to help? Granted, she knew she wouldn't have been all that much help even if she was there, but it still hurt to contemplate.

Allura didn't consider how Coran had access to the information. She knew he had friends in high places, that he was something of an honorary member of the air force even after all these years. Allura didn't question the validity of his words or how he'd learnt of the situation so quickly. She didn't really care, because she knew it to be the truth. And regardless of the fact that they were out, that they were safe and nothing could happen to them _now_ , Allura knew there was only one place in the world she could possibly be at that moment.

"… don't know what happened, and Ralf thinks it might have been a dead zone which wouldn't have happened if they'd used that tech that the DiffFingers Duo have scratched up as they _should_ be because honestly, why wouldn't they – Princess?" Coran cut himself off as he called after Allura. "Princess - Allura, where are you going?"

Allura didn't glance over her shoulder as she left the room. She didn't spare Coran a glance that she suspected might have arisen as a glare. Despite what her objective, logical and rational mind was telling her to do, Allura was leaving. She was leaving _now_ , because that part of her mind was also agreeing with Coran that if DiffFingers' technology had been used, if the line that Pidge and Hunk had founded, the communication devices that they'd been building together for years, had been in use, the communication error wouldn't have happened. Allura had faith in her friends. She knew it wouldn't have happened at all.

So instead, Allura made her decision. Striding down the stairs, she called over her shoulder. "Coran, you still have access to your ship?"

"What?" Coran called, hastening after her in a skittering scuffle of steps. "You mean the Mothership?"

"Yes, I mean the Mothership."

"Of course I do. She's my ship. Why…? Allura, what are you planning?"

Allura spared him a sidelong glance as he drew alongside her but didn't slow as she strode down the stairwell in the direction of the front door. "I've had enough of this, Coran. Enough of waiting, listening in and hearing of disasters narrowly avoided. I'll not sit idly as my friends risk their lives for the greater good."

"What?" Coran all but yelped. Another sidelong glance showed his face to have sagged into open mouthed surprise. "You mean you're – what are you going to do?"

"What I should have done a long time ago," Allura said, pressing her lips together. "What I should have done as soon as I learned of VSF."

Pausing in step in the middle of the hallway, Allura frowned. She glanced once more to Coran where he'd stopped at her side, scratching his head as though he truly struggled with comprehension. "Coran, you still have a licence to fly?"

In an instant, despite the circumstances, Coran's face split into a proud smile. "But of course I do, Princess. I wasn't awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for nothing."

Allura nodded shortly. "Good. Then we're leaving. We fly to Garrison base with all possible speed."

And then, ignoring Coran's splutter of surprise, his call of, "Allura, are we really –?" Allura strode from the Castle once more. She was leaving. She was going to her friends. Really, when she considered it, Allura was surprised it had taken her as long as it had to reach the decision.

Some changes only came about with a gentle nudge. Others, Allura had found, required a boot up the ass, and she was wearing just the right shoes for a firm kick.


	12. PrincessOfAltea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Oops. I lied. My bad, but I'm actually posting right away (I swear, I didn't think it would happen).
> 
> Don't forget to check out the next update straight after this as well :)

_The view was sharper than it had any right to be. Allura thanked Pidge for that. Pidge and Hunk, for that matter. The DiffFingers Duo had long ago modified Rover's sights to allow her prime view through its unwavering green eye._

_Allura saw it all. She saw the town out of visible reach, the spread of squat houses criss-crossed by dirt roads. She saw the shadows stretch from the buildings and draw darkness in those very streets. She saw the faceless figures, masked and wielding clunky weapons, race in their rapid step towards the centre building._

_The centre building. Where they were. Where they all were. Allura felt her jaw tighten almost painfully. It wasn't the first time it had done so that day._

_"_ _Allura?"_

_At Coran's questioning tone, Allura spared a sidelong glance to where he sat in the cockpit. Only a glance and only briefly, the barest twitch of her gaze towards him, before she was turning back to the scene of the town through the screen in her grasp. The depiction was almost eerie in the sharpness of its view. "What?"_

_Coran wasn't tugging and jabbing at controls. He didn't even have to hold the joystick, though his hand was still wrapped around it in an unshakeable grasp. He wouldn't let it go until they touched down, Allura knew. Still, he had the presence of mind to know that their placement in the air where the Mothership hung wasn't going to shift in the bare moments he looked towards Allura._

_He was peering over his shoulder, lips thin beneath the thick bushiness of his moustache. His usual good-humour was abandoned for the seriousness of the situation, for which Allura was thankful. She'd never been one for jokes when her friends were in the throughs of danger. "Should we descend?" he asked._

_It was always Allura's decision. Always it was she who would direct Coran where to go and when to do so. Once, such a reality would have seemed foreign and strange; Coran was the one who had been a soldier, and officer, who held medals to his name that bespoke his courage and skill in the army. And yet he looked to her._

_And Allura looked back to the screen before her, to her view from Rover's eye. She slowly shook her head, even as it pained her to do so. "No. Not yet. We wait until the signal."_

_So they waited. And watched._

_It wasn't long in coming._

_"_ _Princess?" Pidge's voice sounded through the Mothership's overhead speakers, translating her voice as she wouldn't have otherwise been capable even with the technology available in the army. The stealth mechanisms in place aboard the Mothership forbade any inbound communication but for that sent by Voltron and its paladins. "Princess, do you copy?"_

_"_ _We're here, DiffWitch," Allura replied shortly._

_Pidge didn't waste time exchanging of pleasantries and Allura didn't expect her to. She could almost see Pidge's curt nod of acceptance before she continued. "We could use a pick up if you've a second."_

_"_ _If we've a second?" Coran said from the cockpit. "We've been waiting upon your request, DiffWitch."_

_"_ _We'll be down shortly," Allura said. She didn't wait for a moment more to exchange with Pidge before throwing herself away from the screen and into her seat. She'd barely folded herself in half, reaching for the belts to strap herselfin, when she was barking towards Coran. "Go. And make it fast. They don't have much time."_

_They didn't. Allura knew, even if Pidge hadn't said anything, that they were racing the clock. She'd seen the terrorists, the_ GALRA _terrorists, because it would only be the specific group that consistently wrought havoc that would flood the evacuated town. Of course it would be GALRA. VSF – Voltron Special Forces, as only Voltron itself knew it to be specifically named for – had been chasing GALRA for months._

_Coran thrust the Mothership into descent. A sleek vessel, large and unlike most any aircraft Allura had either flown or flown in, it barely jostled with it's fall. Allura didn't need to keep an eye out the front of the ship. She didn't need to watch Coran to ensure that he kept a steady flight as they dropped through the clouds from their positions hanging a mile above the town. Coran was a good flier. Capable._

_No, he was more than that. He was great. One of the best, even. Allura remembered the scepticism of her friends once upon a time and she could hardly blame them; Coran's automobile driving skills left more than a little to be desired. But flying… it was as though Coran had been born to spread metallic wings._

_Allura didn't watch his navigation, however. She didn't marvel at his skills. As always, her attention was turned towards her paladins. Towards where the town below. Towards the scene that Rover was even now showing her through its wonderfully sharp gaze. Allura felt her hands curl around the belts crossing her chest, her jaw tightening once more. What was happening on the screen… it wasn't yet worthy of concern, but Allura would always fear for her paladins._

_She saw them emerge from the centre building. Despite being dubbed the town centre, it wasn't a hall. It seemed barely larger than any of the surrounding houses, but it was clearly the centre and just as clearly had been the site of hostage hold-up. The GALRA forces, at least a dozen that Allura could see, drew closer in flying step. Allura saw it all. She watched with unblinking eyes, gaze darting around to the threats that descended upon her paladins. She couldn't have looked away had she wanted to._

_Which she didn't. They were incredible._

_She saw Hunk erupt from the building first. He charged like a bull, submachine gun held aloft, and dove for the nearest assailant. His bodily collision wiped out the opponent, taking them both to the ground, but Hunk sprung to his feet with agility that bellied his size and was swinging his weapon an instant later. Gunshots sounded with stark clarity through Rover's ears._

_Lance's shots accompanied Hunk a moment later, his assault rifle targeting with unwavering precision. He launched himself out of the central building a bare second after Hunk and in that second another two GALRA dropped like stones. A third fell a moment later before any even seemed to realise Lance was a threat._

_Keith was on his tail. On his tail and then over him, Lance dropping to a knee and Keith using his shoulder as a vault to leap towards the attacking forces. Even at a distance Allura could see the knife in one hand, handgun in another. Keith attacked in a flurry of motion, limbs swiping in vicious strikes as often as his knife slashed or his gun spat a bullet. The figures that dared to face him dropped with heavy, groaning thuds._

_Pidge followed in an instant, her rifle raised and seeming slowed none at all for the heavy weight of her communication equipment on her back. She fell into Lance's side, assuming an identical position with her back towards him as she felled another GALRA attacking from the opposite direction. Allura saw her lips move even as the words filtered into the Mothership. "We have the hostages. Seven total. BlackLion's communicated with their designated leader. What's your status?"_

_"_ _We're less than half a minute away," Allura replied. "Hostage retrieval in order. I doubt we'll have the chance to land, however. The terrain is –"_

_"_ _Yeah, it's a little tight. You won't get the Mothership on the ground." A gunshot cracked through the Comms before Pidge continued. "We'll probably need the rescue ladders, Princess."_

_"_ _Copy that, DiffWitch. T-minus sixteen seconds."_

_"_ _Copy, Princess."_

_Allura was on her feet and untangling herself from her belts in an instant and, thrusting her fears for her paladins aside, she sprung for the rear of the Mothership. It wasn't their first rescue mission. It wasn't even their first time under duress – not by far. GALRA seemed disgustingly prone to using civilians in their exploits. Allura was more than used to the process, to how fast they had to act, and she flung herself into action in an instant. The long, hollow guts of the Mothership didn't need much preparation, but what little was required unfolded in seconds._

_Sixteen._

_Fourteen._

_Ten._

_The ladders uncoiled. Allura felt them the ship descend. She didn't spare Coran or Rover's sights a glance as she worked to ready the passage for the hostages. She barely even glanced towards the chute as it opened barely a foot from her, the floor dropping away and taking the long, uncurling length of the rescue ladder with it._

_Allura pulled sharply on the lever for the doors. She spun the sparse surrounding equipment aside, unhooked the belts from the walls, propped seats down and in less than those sixteen seconds was ready and crouching at the mouth of the chute._

_She could hear the gunshots, far from drowned out by the deafening whirring of the Mothership. She could see the dirt road directly beneath the Mothership, pale in the rapidly falling gloom of night and kicking up plumes of dust. She caught sight of a figure passing beneath the chute, appearing for a bare moment before –_

_Her handgun was in her hand and the figure toppled to the ground. It wasn't a paladin. It wasn't a hostage. Allura couldn't afford the GALRA any mercy. Not in this instance._

_And then another figure appeared. Another dark smudge upon the dirt road, and then another, and another. In a staggering stream, the hostages appeared and, with cries of distress for the ensuing battle barely feet from them, they clambered up the swinging lengths of the rescue ladder._

_Allura helped each one as they hauled themselves into the Mothership. Dirty faces, torn clothes, expressions of terror and confusion and wariness mixed with hesitant relief. Almost detachedly, Allura plastered a warm smile the likes she didn't feel upon her lips. She'd been told by her paladins that her smile was comforting, even when so was detached._

_"_ _You're alright," Allura said, slipping stiltedly into the native dialect. "You're safe now. We'll get you out of here."_

_She directed the hostages with gestures more than words and, buckling the townspeople into the seats herself more than they did themselves, she readied them for departure. The chaos of battle still sounded – until it stopped. Then her paladins arrived._

_They seemed to spring through the chute as though leaping from the ground and straight into the Mothership. Pidge appeared first, heavy pack tossed from her shoulders as she leapt towards one of the portholes, whipped it open to stick her rifle through to fire another shot. Lance appeared a moment later, face absent of a grin as it often was in the field, and assumed a similar position on the opposite wall to Pidge._

_Then Hunk, tossing his submachine gun aside and taking the rifle Allura wordlessly offered him. Hunk would be out of bullets for the submachine gun by now anyway, she knew._

_There was a pause, then. A pause in which neither Keith nor Shiro appeared. For a heartbeat, to the sounds of gunfire, the call from Coran of, "We need to get out of here, Allura," the world seemed to hold its breath. Allura dropped to a crouch beside the chute, gaze dropped into the darkness below._

_Nothing. Nothing until Lance snapped a command over his shoulder. A single word – "Red!" – he all but shouted, and Allura wasn't sure if it was a heartfelt request or an order through their communication channel._

_As though drawn by the call of his name, Keith appeared below the chute. Backing to the rescue ladder, Allura saw him throw a knife – actually throw it, with the deadly accuracy she knew he coveted – and then fly up the ladder. An instant later and…_

_Shiro._

_"_ _Smythe-y," Pidge called over her shoulder to Coran, never taking her eyes from the porthole. "Get us out of here."_

_Allura didn't spare the hostages a glance as the Mothership rose. She was deaf to the gunshots, unfeeling of the tension thrumming through her body. She was blind to all but Shiro as he ascended the ladder with the same flying speed as all of the paladins before him, and Allura's hand was grasping his fingers the moment he was within reach. She hauled him through the chute._

_The ladders were drawn. Allura wasn't sure who did it._

_The doors were closed. She wasn't sure who did that either._

_All she could see was Shiro as he stood before her, breathing just a little heavily and meeting her gaze with the flat professionalism of the captain he was. His goggles were removed in an instant, rifle raised as its use became redundant with their retreat. He didn't look away from Allura for a second._

_As she stared, briefly and for the heartbeat that she'd needed, Allura saw his captain's guise withdraw. She saw it lift just slightly, saw the man she'd grown to love so dearly over the past years arise, and the smallest touch of a smile grace his lips. "Sorry to worry you," he said._

_It was all he said. It was enough._

_Allura didn't need to say anything in reply and she didn't. She simply nodded curtly, stepped towards Shiro and planted a kiss upon his lips that was more firm, decisive and demanding than it was loving. It was a kiss that said he shouldn't_ dare _to worry her as much as he had again, as he always did, even though she knew it would happen again. Then, all but ignoring the slight tilt of his head, the relief that flooded through her that her paladins were safe, that Shiro was safe and the hostages were protected, she turned towards Coran at the far end of the Mothership._

_"_ _Take us home."_


	13. Legendary Defenders

GALRA Strikes Again!

Birmingham. Lyon. Seattle. New Orleans.

Self-proclaimed terrorist group GALRA are almost expected to appear in some of the prime points of notice in recent months. To wreak havoc. To drag blood and sweat from the inhabitants of the some of the largest civilisations in the world. But no longer. GALRA have turned their sights elsewhere.

In the past weeks, attacks upon smaller, self-contained townships and villages have grown exponentially. The town of Culpit is one such victim. On Tuesday evening, threats from GALRA supporters reached military ears. Aid rose in immediate assistance.

"We have confidence in our forces," General Marcus Scott speaks, "but the rescue missions of our teams that were directed upon the scene remain of military concern and understanding."

It is not the first time that such rescue operations have passed almost beneath public awareness. General Scott remains silent upon the nature of his teams but admits that their operation was conducted "swiftly and effectively, as always", to which this reporter can only assume refers to similar missions undertaken in the past. Another mission, another victory.

The residents of Culpit, sent a precautionary warning on Monday evening, were encouraged to vacate the town by Tuesday morning. The completeness of this vacation was handicapped by the…

* * *

 

_BlackLion007 has entered the chatroom._

_BlackLion007: Well, congratulations, everyone. We made the papers._

_BlackLion007: I think we should all be proud of our efforts that not only is reporter Michelle Sanders vaguely appreciative in her words but that it was deemed the success it truly was._

_Butterfingers has entered the chatroom._

_Butterfingers: Good morning! And yes, I did read the article, as I'm sure every paladin worth their name has by now._

_Butterfingers: I must admit, I did feel kind of proud of myself, even before you said something. Now I just feel doubly chuffed._

_BlackLion007: So you should. You were incredible._

_Butterfingers: :)_

_Sharpshooter18 has entered the chatroom._

_DiffWizard has entered the chatroom._

_Sharpshooter18: I take it you've both read it, then?_

_DiffWizard: I can't believe it._

_DiffWizard: Seriously?_

_Sharpshooter18: I know, right?_

_Butterfingers: ?_

_BlackLion007: What's wrong? Is there a problem?_

_PrincessOfAltea has entered the chatroom._

_Wimbleton-Smythe has entered the chatroom._

_PrincessOfAltea: Good morning, everyone! Such a wonderfully fine day, as ever._

_DiffWizard: What's wrong, you say? What's wrong?_

_Red has entered the chatroom._

_Red: Hi._

_Sharpshooter18: I'll tell 'em, Diff. Let me handle this._

_Red: Oh, it's already happening._

_Butterfingers: What is?_

_Butterfingers: No, wait, I think I see. Do I see it?_

_PrincessOfAltea: Is this the same as last time?_

_BlackLion007: Now everyone, let's not make a fuss over this._

_PrincessOfAltea: Wimbleton-Smythe says we should be respectful of the boundaries the privacy military has instilled for us._

_DiffWizard: Dear Smythe-y, why don't you get your butt on here and say it for yourself?_

_PrincessOfAltea: Wimbleton-Smythe wishes to remain impartial._

_Sharpshooter18: That impartiality is void, man. You've chosen your side._

_Sharpshooter18: Traitor._

_Sharpshooter18: How could you? To ME?_

_Butterfingers: I'm still a little confused. Are Sharpshooter and DiffWizard actually upset that we didn't get a specific mention again?_

_Red: Naturally._

_Sharpshooter18: YES!_

_DiffWizard: Yes. The bastards._

_DiffWizard: And I know, BlackLion, Smythe-y and Princess – you're all about protecting our identity and all that. But it's still depressing._

_BlackLion007: The privacy precautions are in place for a reason._

_PrincessOfAltea: How could we be a covert force if the world knew of us?_

_Sharpshooter18: I know._

_Sharpshooter18: It would just be nice to receive a little actual appreciation every once in a while._

_BlackLion007: General McHampton congratulated you personally._

_DiffWizard: Ha. Yeah._

_Sharpshooter18: She looked constipated when she was doing it._

_Butterfingers: Too much fibre in the diet, man._

_Red: I happen to think McHampton showed the appropriate degree of recognition. It's not her fault if you can't read the cues._

_DiffWizard: Red, has anyone told you you're about as expressionless as a statue?_

_Sharpshooter18: Sometimes ;)_

_DiffWizard: I didn't need to hear that._

_Red: Yes. As it happens, you have on several occasions, DiffWizard._

_Red: Your point?_

_BlackLion007: Is this going to be offensive? I'll step in if I must, DiffWizard._

_DiffWizard: Yes, Dad._

_DiffWizard: I only meant you're probably more capable of reading other people who are similarly expressionless._

_PrincessOfAltea: Is that how it works? How fascinating! Do you find it easier, Red?_

_Red: That's a ridiculous assumption._

_Sharpshooter18: It really is. Red sucks at reading people._

_Sharpshooter18: No offence, babe._

_Red: None taken. It's the truth._

_Butterfingers: *sniff* That right there. Character development._

_PrincessOfAltea: I'm sorry?_

_DiffWizard: I'm rolling my eyes right now, Butterfingers._

_BlackLion007: They have grown somewhat, haven't they?_

_Red: I would appreciate it if you didn't speak of me like I'm not in the room._

_Sharpshooter18: Yeah. And we're getting off topic._

_Sharpshooter18: What happened to my indignation?_

_DiffWizard: It was short and simple. Like your intelligence._

_Butterfingers: Ouch._

_Sharpshooter18: I resent that. Asshole._

_DiffWizard: Thank you for your heartfelt compliment._

_BlackLion007: Guys, keep it gentle, please._

_PrincessOfAltea: Don't worry, Shiro. I think it's all on good humour._

_PrincessOfAltea: And I think I can understand such indignation at least a little bit. It would be nice if the world knew they had us to rely upon._

_Butterfingers: :O_

_Sharpshooter18: Are we_

_Sharpshooter18: Have we brainwashed the Princess?_

_Red: I think brainwashing is a bit of a leap._

_DiffWizard: Princess, you do realise that was just BlackLion you back-chatted, right?_

_PrincessOfAltea: Back-chatted? I don't really see it as that._

_BlackLion007: Perhaps you're right. It would be nice to have those around us know they were protected from the threat that is GALRA and that they could call upon a specific special force should they ever need it._

_PrincessOfAltea: Exactly._

_DiffWizard: Aaaaaaand, that wasn't even a fight._

_DiffWizard: How disappointing._

_Sharpshooter18: Told you they'd never fought._

_Red: Actually, I was the one who told YOU that._

_Sharpshooter18: You're my boyfriend. I can take credit for your ideas too._

_Red: I don't think that's how it works._

_Sharpshooter18: Sure it is. What's mine is yours and vice versa._

_Butterfingers: So cute._

_DiffWizard: Butterfingers, please._

_DiffWizard: It's not cute, it's sickening. And I'm not done being indignant._

_DiffWizard: I would have even appreciated a little more speculation. Michelle Sanders barely even seemed curious about us before she was changing the subject._

_Sharpshooter18: True that. Asshole._

_DiffWizard: I resent being associated with her._

_Red: Because you're both assholes?_

_DiffWizard: Yes. I have standards too. You're tarnishing the good name of The Asshole._

_PrincessOfAltea: DiffWizard._

_DiffWizard: Yes?_

_BlackLion007: DiffWizard._

_DiffWizard: Okay. Sorry._

_DiffWizard: But blame Sharpshooter too. He started it._

_Sharpshooter18: I did not! I'm allowed to be indignant._

_Sharpshooter18: And why are you throwing me under the bus? I'm on your side._

_DiffWizard: True. For once._

_DiffWizard: The right side._

_Sharpshooter18: I don't object to that. I'm on it too._

_Butterfingers: They should come up with a name for us._

_Red: If by 'they' you mean the world, then…_

_PrincessOfAltea: You mean the public? Or the reporters._

_BlackLion007: I don't think Michelle Sanders would be particularly kind in her naming._

_Butterfingers: No. I shudder to think._

_Butterfingers: But don't people usually do that? When they don't know the real identity of people, they give them a hero name or something?_

_Red: You're referring to us as superheroes?_

_Butterfingers: Maybe._

_Red: We're not superheroes._

_BlackLion007: Maybe not, but we try._

_Sharpshooter18: The Lion King has spoken, Red. We're heroes._

_PrincessOfAltea: I believe he said 'we try'._

_Sharpshooter18: Princess, I thought you were on my side today._

_PrincessOfAltea: Unfortunately, I find myself fluctuating to the party that speaks with greater logic._

_DiffWizard: Well, sorry, Sharpshooter. Guess she's never going to be on your side._

_Sharpshooter18: You're on my side right now. You're just kicking yourself, now._

_DiffWizard: Shut up._

_Butterfingers: Maybe we could come up with a name for ourselves?_

_Red: We already have a name._

_Butterfingers: VSF isn't a name. No one but us even knows what the V stands for._

_PrincessOfAltea: I was still surprised that the general never asked. He must have a very soft spot for you, BlackLion._

_BlackLion007: I believe we have at least an imbalanced mutual respect._

_PrincessOfAltea: You short-change yourself if you think it's imbalanced._

_BlackLion007: Thank you._

_PrincessOfAltea: :)_

_Butterfingers: So cute._

_DiffWizard: Butterfingers, restrain yourself._

_Sharpshooter18: I've decided. I'm going to come up with a name._

_Red: I could have anticipated that._

_Sharpshooter18: Because I'm so good with nicknames?_

_Red: Yes. That's entirely why._

_Sharpshooter18: I can hear that sarcasm in your voice._

_Red: I wasn't trying to hide it._

_PrincessOfAltea: What would you call us, then, Sharpshooter?_

_BlackLion007: Although, bear in mind that it won't be publicly known._

_Butterfingers: Aw... that's upsetting._

_Sharpshooter18: Tell me about it._

_Sharpshooter18: But we'd still use it if I came up with one._

_DiffWizard: Depends. Is it stupid? Boring? Irrelevant?_

_Red: Could it be any less boring that V-Special Forces?_

_Sharpshooter18: Thanks, babe._

_Red: It's the truth._

_PrincessOfAltea: It does leave a little to be desired, doesn't it? Rather unimaginative._

_BlackLion007: But not inaccurate._

_Butterfingers: I think accuracy is the only thing it's got going for it._

_Butterfingers: Let's hear it, Sharpshooter._

_Sharpshooter18: Okay._

_Sharpshooter18: Alright._

_Sharpshooter18: Are you ready to have your socks blown off?_

_DiffWizard: Just tell us already._

_Sharpshooter18: I have given this much consideration, and I believe it's best to incorporate our foundational name. For posterity, you understand._

_PrincessOfAltea: Have you been thinking about this for some time?_

_Sharpshooter18: Yes._

_Red: All of the last ten minutes?_

_Sharpshooter18: Ten minutes is the longest I've ever taken to come up with a nickname._

_Butterfingers: Except for Red's._

_Sharpshooter18: Yes, except for Red's. Special circumstances._

_DiffWizard: We're still waiting for that one._

_Sharpshooter18: Stop distracting me._

_Sharpshooter18: Okay._

_Sharpshooter18: So._

_BlackLion007: Sharpshooter, perhaps you should just tell us?_

_Sharpshooter18: Alright._

_Sharpshooter18: How about this?_

_Sharpshooter18: Voltron: The Defenders of the Universe._

_Sharpshooter18: Right?_

_Sharpshooter18: Guys?_

_Sharpshooter18: What do you think?_

_Sharpshooter18: …_

_Sharpshooter18: What's with the awkward pause?_

_PrincessOfAltea: Well, it does incorporate 'Voltron', which I like._

_BlackLion007: And it does have a certain strength to it._

_Red: The universe?_

_DiffWizard: Do you even realise how big the entire universe is?_

_DiffWizard: Honestly._

_Hunk: I think it has a nice ring to it, but…_

_Red: It's maybe a bit excessive._

_DiffWizard: A bit wordy, in my opinion._

_Sharpshooter18: Fine._

_Sharpshooter18: Assholes._

_BlackLion007: We didn't mean to offend. It was a good attempt :)_

_PrincessOfAltea: Yes, but maybe as DiffWizard said, it's just a little wordy?_

_Sharpshooter18: Fine._

_Sharpshooter18: Then how about this._

_Sharpshooter18: Voltron: Legendary Defenders._

_Sharpshooter18: Right?_

_Sharpshooter18: …_

_Sharpshooter18: I swear, I will beat the shit out of you all if I have to._

_Red: It's better._

_Sharpshooter18: And expanding on that means…?_

_DiffWizard: Better._

_Sharpshooter18: Thank you, DiffWizard. Very helpful._

_PrincessOfAltea: I actually kind of like it. It seems very grandiose._

_PrincessOfAltea: And I think we deserve grandiose. We're wonderful._

_BlackLion007: I do believe, Princess, that you are perhaps the only person in the world who could say such a thing without appearing arrogant._

_PrincessOfAltea: Thank you._

_Red: I appreciate the potential acronym._

_Sharpshooter18: VLD?_

_Red: Yes. It's better than VSF._

_Sharpshooter18: Sweet. It's done._

_Butterfingers: Wait, what about my opinion?_

_Sharpshooter18: Butters, don't betray me on this one._

_Butterfingers: I like it :)_

_Butterfingers: More than the first one._

_Butterfingers: It makes us sound hardcore._

_DiffWizard: Legendary._

_BlackLion007: Well, maybe one day we could make the history books._

_PrincessOfAltea: Seven sequential missions of maximum success? I'd say that's admirable._

_Sharpshooter18: So that's it?_

_Sharpshooter18: That's us?_

_DiffWizard: Yeah, I think so. It sort of suits us._

_DiffWizard: Defenders._

_DiffWizard: Yeah._

_Sharpshooter18: Ohmygod, I just received Diff's approval._

_DiffWizard: Shut up._

_Sharpshooter: That's it. That's us._

_Red: VLD._

_Butterfingers: Legends._

_DiffWizard: Defenders._

_PrincessOfAltea: We might be just that, I think._

_BlackLion007: A good idea, Sharpshooter. Thank you._

_Sharpshooter18: Yeah. I think that's it._

_Sharpshooter18: That's us._

_Sharpshooter18: Voltron: Legendary Defenders._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Final chapter! Was that a little sudden? It might have been a little sudden. But, well, I feel like it's come to a pretty natural close. And, in the nature of all things ending, we return to our roots.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's taken the time to read this story - those who've stuck with me from the beginning of Picture Perfect People and those since. Saiikavon and svoon in particular, I can't tell you how much I've appreciated your unwavering loyalty throughout this series. Thank you so, so much. I hope you enjoyed it even half as much as I loved writing it. 
> 
> If you did, please take the time to leave a comment. I'd love to hear from you or just about anyone. Thanks!


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